DHS sends boy home for dressing as a girl (rather lengthy)

[alex_c]

By Suevon Lee
Staff writer

Published: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 6:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, March 30, 2009 at 10:52 p.m.

Inside the halls of any typical American public high school, the outfit would hardly be construed as outlandish: a V-neck T-shirt, blue jeans and high-heeled boots, accentuated by earrings and a necklace.

Click to enlarge
Justin Reynolds is shown in front of Dunnellon High School wearing the clothes he had on when he was sent home for dressing like a girl on Friday.
ALAN YOUNGBLOOD/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Worn by a male student, however, the outfit might raise some eyebrows.

That's what it did at Dunnellon High School, where last week 11th-grader Justin Reynolds showed up at school dressed that way, sporting eyeliner and mascara as well.

His appearance led to his early dismissal by school administrators.

"It wasn't anything overdramatic," Reynolds said of his attire. "It's an expression of yourself, no matter what. To dress out of your own gender shouldn't be anything."

The 16-year-old student, who is gay, said he first ran the idea by his teacher a day beforehand. She discouraged it but gave him the opportunity to address his classmates that morning.

"A lot of people responded to it well. I didn't think I was causing that much of a disruption," Reynolds said, recalling the cheers and high-fives that greeted him, especially after he spoke in tribute to Gwen Araujo, a transgender California teen brutally murdered in October 2002.

In a brief conference held with the school's principal and assistant principal shortly thereafter, Reynolds was asked to leave school for the day. He was out the door by 11 a.m.

"He and I had a conversation about what reaction he would get from peers," said Principal Michelle Lewis. "A decision was made that it would be best for him to go home. This was a group decision after healthy conversation. There was no kind of animosity. Discipline wasn't the tone of the conversation."

Reynolds recalls how school officials seemed especially uncomfortable with his wearing a bra stuffed with padding underneath his shirt. He remembers how one administrator could barely look him in the eye.

And he waives any notion that his attire was a mere stunt to get kicked out of school.

"I was ready to stay the entire day. I was prepared to stay the whole day," he said.

Marion County Schools spokesman Kevin Christian said school administrators are permitted to call a student out on his dress if they feel his clothing is "inappropriate," meaning it "disrupts the school process."

In the Marion County Code of Student Conduct, the handbook overseen by a committee of parents, principals and a rotating School Board member, it's plainly stated students must dress "in keeping with their gender."

Despite Reynolds' ready acquiescence to school officials that day, the episode raises several constitutional concerns, according to some legal experts, who point to a long history of tensions between schools and the assertion of students' right to dress as they please.

Typically, in past legal challenges, they say, courts have sided with the schools when it comes to basic dress codes.

"Students don't have full-fledged First Amendment rights. It's a supervised setting. It's a particular mission, and the student speech is not allowed to interfere in the student's school," said Lyrissa C. Barnett Lidsky, a University of Florida law professor.

But in Reynolds' case, the circumstances deviate from such legally-recognized standards, she added.

"This one is just unusual because the person is clearly wearing something that is appropriate. If he were a female wearing it, it would be appropriate. The problem is not the clothing, it's the person wearing it. The real question is: Does this interfere with the mission of the school?" she posed.

David L. Hudson, a scholar at the Nashville, Tenn.-based First Amendment Center, said "student-dress issues arise literally all over the country, ranging from message T-shirt cases, to blue hair, to challenges to various aspects of the school dress code."

"Just because a school has a code of conduct doesn't mean their actions are right," he noted.

Plus, he said, overly vague or broad policies in schools' code of conduct could "raise the specter of discrimination," particularly if it involves a gender-specific dress code that doesn't necessarily apply the same to girls as it does to boys.

Indeed, one argument Reynolds raised to school officials last week was that the lesbians at his school dress "like boys" whenever they please, so how are they exempt?

"When you treat people differently, that raises the specter of an equal protection claim," Hudson said.

At least one previously-reported court ruling issues some direction on the topic of cross-dressing in the schools. In the case of Doe v. Yunits, heard in Massachusetts Superior Court in 2000, a 15-year-old transgender male won a case against the Brockton School Department which had forbid him from wearing things like makeup, skirts and dresses to school.

Justice Linda E. Giles, in her October 11, 2000 ruling, wrote: "Defendants do not find plaintiff's clothing distracting, per se, but, essentially, distracting simply because plaintiff is a biological male."

Giles rejected the School Board's argument that other students' threats against the transgender male amounted to disruptive behavior.

"To rule in defendants' favor in this regard, however, would grant those contentious students a 'heckler's veto,' " the judge wrote, concluding her ruling on this note: "This court trusts that exposing children to diversity at an early age serves the important social goals of increasing their ability to tolerate such differences and teaching them respect for everyone's unique personal experience in that 'Brave New World' out there."

In Marion County, the couple dozen individuals who make up the Code of Student Conduct Committee revisit the handbook each year.

Kathy Richardson, executive director of Student Services, again raises the notion of disruption in justifying the gender-specific dress code: "From a practical reason it would be to avoid causing a major disruption in the school setting," she said. "They're wanting to jump up out of their seats and leave class to go look at a situation."

School Board member Sue Mosley unabashedly defended the rule as necessary in maintaining a "level of decorum" in the schools.

"I'm a firm believer that children, whether they're gay, straight, lesbian, whatever, need to come to school prepared to learn. It's not a fashion show," she said. "There's got to be a level of decorum whether you're in a work environment or school environment."

But several students interviewed at Dunnellon High scoffed that Reynolds' appearance last week was disruptive or caused a disturbance. Some even expressed pride in his courage to dress as he did in the name of shunning intolerance.

"I don't see why it's such a big deal," said Tyler Brightman, 15, a 9th-grader.

"It's only the immature people that laugh," said Tesha Rains, 16, a 10th-grader.

Reynolds, a teen who moved to Dunnellon three years ago from Brooklyn, N.Y., has no plan to challenge the School Board on its dress code.

But his patience wears thin. He has attempted to start a Gay-Straight Alliance at his school, an idea he said was already shot down once by a teacher during his freshman year.

"My ultimate goal is to make people aware. Don't judge other people for what they want to do," he said.

He said he would come to school dressed as a female at least once every two weeks if he could. "I just feel comfortable like that," he said.

"I think a lot of people kind of figured it's OK for people to be different. They understood why I did what I did," he said of his peers' reaction.

http://www.ocala.com/article/2009033...sing-as-a-girl

[SarahG]

As long as we have a public schooling system, instead of a public education system, schools will be there to try to socialize our population one generation at a time to be however they want them to be (assimilated, unthinking and concordant) as priority #1... not to educate.

If education occurs at all under a public schooling system, it is but an unintended consequence.

[MacShreach]

As long as we have a public schooling system, instead of a public education system, schools will be there to try to socialize our population one generation at a time to be however they want them to be (assimilated, unthinking and concordant) as priority #1... not to educate.

If education occurs at all under a public schooling system, it is but an unintended consequence.

Well said. The problem, of course, is that genuine education systems, public or private, for young people, are extremely rare; nearly all fall into the category of what you call schooling.

Even "home schooling" is frequently just that-- a method of training the child into reflecting the attitudes (often extremist or marginal) of the parents.

[T-girl hound]

Being a teacher, who dates ts women and knowing the closed door intricacies behind this i'm not shocked. I am though highly dissappointed in that, schools seem like a precursor to the military.

[hereorthere]

GOOD !

A school is place to learn - not to express yourself

[Teydyn]

GOOD !

A school is place to learn - not to express yourself

How about learning to express yourself?

[MacShreach]

brain-dead, hyper-conformist, tub-thumping BS

Who let the troll in?

[hereorthere]

GOOD !

A school is place to learn - not to express yourself

How about learning to express yourself?

That's what your life outside school is for - a social life -- in other words, a place where my TAX DOLLARS are not being spent ... my taxes pay for school ... not dress-up

[SarahG]

GOOD !

A school is place to learn - not to express yourself

How about learning to express yourself?

That's what your life outside school is for - a social life -- in other words, a place where my TAX DOLLARS are not being spent ... my taxes pay for school ... not dress-up

You're right, your taxes are there to (presumably) pay for the education of children.

The logical conclusion is that anytime a school goes beyond that focus on educating children, they're abusing their powers, and wasting your tax payer money. This is one of those times.

Schools that decide to act as gender role police routinely end up in the courts, where they have to duke it out with lawyers... costing you, the tax payer even more money, for a practice that has nothing to do with education. The tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars schools spend in lengthy litigation over absurdly pointless administration policies like these, could go a real long way in providing textbooks, computers, and other supplies for our children. Instead all that money gets wasted in the courts, requiring the schools to raise property taxes, further burdening our population of homeowners that have already been taxed too much to pay for our decrepit, inefficient, poorly run schools.

[flabbybody]

gender wise, there's very little difference in today's urban high schools between boys and girls fashion. why don't the adults just leave the kid alone and let him go to school?