Evil Pink and Purple

Right after I got home with a big bag of new shirts and jeans I'd picked up for my daughter, who grew two inches while having the flu, she told me. "I won't be able to wear these next year." Looking at the shock on my face, she added, "But I love them."

Seems her junior high school has a dress code.

I can understand a school having a dress code. However. Her school's dress code is: blue, green, brown, white. No stripes; no plaid; no prints; no jeans, except on Fridays. No pink, no orange, no purple, no red. No black, no gray. "Black and gray are not school colors," the website her disbelieving father and I sought out at this news stated.

So? My junior high school's colors were green and white. We didn't have to wear them and only them day after day. Thank goodness.

So, my daughter with a more-than-ample wardrobe suddenly had nothing "decent" to wear to school. I checked. All of her pants were black, gray, pink, tan, or jeans. She had one solid teal and one almost solid white shirt that she could plan to wear next year. I'm sorry, but I am not sending my budding rose to school with only two shirts and no pants.

This is a public school. If I were placing her in a private school, I could understand. Some of the neighborhood residents are wealthy, but not all of us!

Even with hitting the clearance racks, it is costing a fortune to provide a totally alternate wardrobe. The penalty for not complying? A fifty dollar fine.

I can understand not allowing students to wear anything questionable or immodest. All of her clothes are conservative. I can understand banning logos. None of her clothes have them. I can understand banning gang colors in an area with gang activity (not applicable here).

I would like the principal to explain to me what is evil about pink? What is wrong with alternating light green and dark green stripes? Even private Catholic schools allow plaid.

Do they realize how hard it is to find green pants that will not clash with the greens (and blues) of the shirts? Black or gray pants match everything. But, no!

I have to wonder. She has an all-blue shirt with white sleeves and a butterfly on the front. Is that going to bring on a fifty-dollar fine? It's solid colors, approved colors, and the butterfly isn't a logo. So will it fly? I cannot tell you how tempted I am to haul her whole wardrobe in there and get each item pre-approved. After providing her an alternate wardrobe on what seems like someone's whim, I am going to be in no mood to pay any fines.

The more I think about this and cannot come up with a logical explanation, the more it seems to me that this is just someone abusing authority. Just making arbitrary pronouncements just because s/he can. And that's wrong. It puts an undue burden on the poor. Even on the middle class! And unless someone can explain to me what is wrong with conservative, modest clothing of various colors, I will continue to feel like it's wrong.