-Caveat Lector-
> Parents across the South battle mandatory school dress codes
>
> By David Hudson
> First Amendment Center
>
> 8.17.99
>
> • What do you think? Have your say in The Forum.
>
> <Picture>
>
> While many parents of public school students across the country
> object to mandatory school dress codes, Southern parents are
> banding together to voice their opposition to the policies.
>
> Several parents have formed groups to raise public awareness
> about the dress codes, which they say violate their and their
> children's First Amendment rights and are antithetical to
> individual freedom.
>
> Tim Tillman, father of four public school children in Polk
> County, Fla., has formed the Parental Action Committee to
> challenge the school district's adoption of a mandatory uniform
> policy.
>
> On its Web site, the group says that its "emphasis will be on
> countering the continuing attempts of the school board to deny
> parents their rights to opt out of the uniform policy."
>
> "This mandatory school uniform policy is un-American and is
> fundamentally wrong," Tillman told free! "The children in this
> community are being denied their freedom of political and
> religious expression."
>
> He says that he and many other parents have hired an attorney and
> will soon file a lawsuit challenging the school uniform policy.
>
> Another group of parents in Wilson County, Tenn., is hoping to
> raise public awareness of the controversial dress code policy at
> area schools.
>
> Last July the Wilson County School Board adopted a mandatory
> school dress code policy, which requires navy, khaki, hunter
> green or black bottoms and "solid white navy blue or hunter green
> [collared] shirts."
>
> The Wilson County Parents Coalition, on its Web site, quotes
> Henry David Thoreau, saying "Beware all enterprises that require
> new clothes."
>
> Shortly after the school board approved the new dress code
> policy, Shirley Cox and Therese Harmon formed Parents Against
> Mandatory Uniforms to object to the dress code policy and the way
> it was passed. Cox and Harmon now call their group the Wilson
> County Parents Coalition.
>
> "They are taking away our children's right to freedom of
> expression," Cox told free!
>
> Earlier this week, Cox's oldest daughter, ninth-grader Lenai
> Brady, was given in-school suspension for wearing a University of
> Tennessee T-shirt. Cox said her three younger children and other
> students also were punished this week, either given in-school
> detention or sent home — for violating the dress code.
>
> Cox says she and the other members of the Wilson County Parents
> Coalition are hoping to file a lawsuit. "We need to file a class
> action lawsuit to defend our rights and to make the public aware
> of what is actually happening here," she said.
>
> "When children are pulled out of school and searched simply
> because they are out of uniform, that is a violation of their
> constitutional rights," Cox said.
>
> "This is a violation of our parental rights because I believe
> that part of my God-given rights is to raise my children," Cox
> said. "It is my job as their mother to instill their moral and
> religious values. I do not want the school system telling them
> what is appropriate to wear.
>
> "Under the First Amendment, as long as you do anything that is
> not affecting or infringing on someone else's right, you should
> be able to do that," she said. "My child wearing a UT shirt is
> not infringing on anyone else's rights.
>
> "I am willing to go to jail to protect my child's rights and I am
> not alone," Cox said.
>
> Other groups of parents have taken legal action to protect what
> they view as infringements on their First Amendment rights. More
> than 20 parents have joined together to challenge a mandatory
> school uniform policy in Jackson County, Miss.
>
> In Brody v. The Jackson County School Board, the parents claim
> that "requiring students to wear particular clothing interferes
> with students' right of freedom of expression and personal
> liberty." On Aug. 10, the parents filed more papers with a
> federal court supporting their motion for a preliminary
> injunction to halt enforcement of the dress code.
>
> Many of the parents believe that schools are not helping kids by
> making them all dress alike. In legal papers, Carol Brody, the
> lead plaintiff in the Mississippi lawsuit, states: "I want my
> children to experience and learn how to accept and live with the
> diversity of our society so they will be prepared for it when
> they are adults."
>
> Her husband, Phil Brody, says that "the institution of a
> mandatory uniform policy within a public school symbolizes a
> deprivation of freedom."
>
> Another group of parents has challenged a similar school uniform
> policy in Bossier City, La. In Canady v. Bossier Parish School
> Board, the parents claimed that the school policy violated the
> "First Amendment right to free speech, free and open expression
> and religious freedom because it denies freedom of expression in
> personal appearance and amounts to forced speech and appearance
> similar to totalitarian regimes."
>
> However, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit earlier this week.
>
>
> The struggle over school uniforms appears to be growing. Gary
> Peter Klahr, a Phoenix-based attorney who has handled several
> student uniform cases, calls Southern parents' resistance to
> school uniforms the "Southern Uniform Rebellion."
>
> Klahr contends that mandatory uniform policies and strict dress
> codes are a "gross infringement" on students' and parents' First
> Amendment rights. "The U.S. Supreme Court in Tinker ruled that
> students do not lose their constitutional rights to freedom of
> expression at the schoolhouse gate," he told free! "However,
> school officials are stripping students of their free-expression
> rights when they enter the schoolhouse gate."
>From www.freedomforum.org
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