Are Public School Uniform Policies Discriminatory And Racist, Some North Carolina Parents Think So


Parents in Guilford County, North Carolina, are taking a stand against school uniform policies, stating the program is discriminatory. They said requiring uniforms is a discriminatory practice allowed primarily at schools with large populations of minority students from low-income families.

In Guildford County, each individual school is responsible for determining a school’s dress code. According to WFMY, the school board passed a provision that allows schools to decide whether to enforce a uniform dress code (Standard Mode of Dress/SMOD) about five years ago. During that time, 36 different schools have adopted the school uniform code and require that students comply.

However, many parents find the practice discriminatory against minorities and low-income families since 30 of the schools utilizing the SMOD policy are in low-income, high minority communities or designated Title I schools. Many parents are wondering why the dress code is not district wide if it is supposedly designed to improve education.

“Why are some of the schools in SMOD and some are not if SMOD is so good for everyone?” speaker Linda Mozell asked in front of the board during the public comments portion of the meeting. “We need to talk about character, we need to model character, and we need to stop putting children in clothing and think that that builds character.”

The News Record reports that many of the school board members agree with concerned parents. One board member, Amos Quick, initially voted in favor of the SMOD school uniform policy, but agrees with parents that there is a problem with only certain school utilizing the program. Quick says:

“We cannot overlook the fact there is a clear line of distinction between who’s in SMOD and who’s not in SMOD. This is coming from one who voted and was pretty outspoken in my support for SMOD. It simply does not do what it was advertised to do.”

Parents say that the dress code actually removes some students from the learning environment since some schools have been known to remove students from class for minor uniform infractions. Small infractions include not wearing a belt, having a logo that is too big or small, or not tucking in a shirt. Parents feel teachers should be worrying about education the children, not what they are wearing.

Some parents feel that because they are low-income, the school district feels they don’t know how to properly dress their children. Megan Eller, a parent of a student at a SMOD school, says:

“I don’t understand why you think just because I live in a Title I district, I can’t dress my child. It should be left for me as a parent. This has been a long, long conversation and I’m tired of it!”

What do you think? Are public school uniform policies discriminatory, focusing on low-income and minority students?

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