Oklahoma School Dress Code
 

This is a follow-up to the story, but it'll do as a link

http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-fo...e-this-season/


A kindergartener in Oklahoma violated dress code by wearing a University of Michigan shirt. Apparently the dress code -which bans clothing supporting all professional sports teams and all college teams EXCEPT those of Oklahoma colleges was introduced to stop gang behaviour.

Hm.

Here in Ann Arbor, MI, home of the University of Michigan, gang behaviour is most likely to erupt when you wear a shirt supporting any other Michigan colleges, most notably Michigan State in Lansing. You wear an Oklahoma shirt -no-one gives a fuck. (Ohio would cause you problems, but that's about it for out-of-state, excepting oppo shirts on game days) So how does allowing OK colleges only help with this problem? Or do they only have one in the entire state?

And..... isn't is beneficial to encourage kids to go away for college and then bring their experience back? Are they worried they won't return? Is it the only way to fill their colleges? Or is it just an extension of the "keeping it in the family" I've heard is so popular in some of the more southern states? ;)

sounds stupid, like blaming the gun for the death of a kid.

being stupid enough to fight at school because of a given shirt is just stupid, but it's not the shirt's fault.

but here we're blaming all guns except those make in oklahoma, no?

Well played Mr. Brandon, well played.

well.

I have people in OK. they **lurve** their football team. I mean really really. And my BD, she went to the state school and is seriously gung ho for HER school, in all sports, especially football. My car is covered in school swag, floor mats, window stickers, special license plates, logo seat covers (retired now, but still), logo tassel hanging from rear view mirror, etc. She loves her school. But I honestly think she would not fight. Cuss and yell at the referees during the televised competition, sure.

My other college graduate is not wound so tightly. Meh.

My point is that if a given shirt (or any shirt except the right shirt) sets a kid off, the problem's in the kid, not the shirt.

I think it's really a dumb and inconsistent and indoctrinating policy.

This may sound silly, but if you've ever seen kindergarten colour gangs punching on in the sandpit, you'd know there was a real problem to be addressed here. :right:

ZG I loved the "both sides" shirt too. But I'm kinda childish ;)

....and can also see that removing the "inside out" option for "offensive" shirts in school will quickly follow the craze for shirts that are offensive inside and out.......

He was wearing a University of Michigan shirt? I'm surprised he wasn't drawn and quartered. We can't allow that crap running rampant. I don't want that in OHIO. You wanna wear a Michigan shirt you best be moving on up to Michigan. /kiddingOSUvsUMrivalry

Hell you can't even wear Michigan licence plates in Ohio.

HAHAHAHAAA!

Because Michigan drivers...crazy!

*shrug* It's not about the sports. It's about the gangs.

Is gang behavior a problem with the student, and not the shirt? Absolutely. But what is a school administration to do about that, when it is riddled with such students and cannot simply expel all of them?

My junior year in high school, they instituted a new dress code amendment--shoelace color. They could only be black, or white, or on some occasions brown IF they matched the shoes. All the white middle class kids were up in arms about their rights and freedom of expression and creativity and all that. Many of them wore rainbow shoelaces in protest. And the administration shrugged and sent them home to change as the policy called for.

Because, you see, having outlawed gang colors on clothing, the little gangbangers (about half of the school, by my estimation) had recently begun wearing their colors in their shoelaces, and an actual gang fight had erupted over this, which is what prompted the change in policy. It was about the reality of blood stains on the school floor, and nothing more. But policies have to be applied universally, or else they're not policies.

They should just put all kids in uniforms.

I agree, on uniforms.

Both of my school-aged kids (one 2nd grader and one 10th grader) are wearing uniforms this year, due to new policies at their schools.

I'm delighted.

If the problem is kids fighting how can the answer be forbidding an article of clothing? Those bad attitudes are bound to find a way around a given rule. Don't believe me? Here's an example of

The Problem With Jeggings.


And Even More Problems With Jeggings:


No matter how much the administration tries to solve their problems this way,

The Problems With Jeggings will Continue:

For a while, gang signs were simply to have your head angled either to the left or the right. Kinda hard to ban that.