Last Monday morning, the Principal of Minnetonka High School, Dave Adney, sent an email stating, “Some of our girls have chosen to wear t-shirts with the leggings, thus exposing more leg and backside area. This can be highly distracting for other students and I am asking your assistance. If your daughters choose to wear leggings or other tight fitting clothing please support our goal of keeping things covered up,” (Minnetonka Patch). Though the Principal doesn’t necessarily ban tight-fitting pants, such as leggings or yoga pants, he does express his frustration of “exposing more leg and backside area.”
Leggings, if opaque enough, can be considered pants. Yoga pants are simply tighter fitting sweatpants that cover a girl’s skin in the appropriate way, and allow us be comfortable on days when we may not want to look classy in school. Why should the principal of a school tell girls to cover up their backsides, when they are already covered well enough? Boys consistently have their pants low on their bodies, showing their boxers, yet school administrations never seem to send out emails about having them covering their backsides more.
Yes, if a girl is wearing a pair of leggings in which you can see her undergarments, it is the right time to contact both the students and parents about wearing more school-appropriate clothing. But for a Principal of a public high school to email the parents about tight-fitting clothing on girls only, is an unnecessary and rude act. Just because it may be “distracting” for other students in the school, does not make it ok for a member of the administration to speak for the entire student body, and tell girls that they are not allowed to wear pants that may simply make them feel more comfortable.
Speaking as a girl in her last year of high school, I am very annoyed and offended at the action taken by Principal Adney of Minnetonka High School. If I want to wear comfortable pants that may be tighter on my body than say jeans, or sweatpants, that is my decision. If students get distracted, it is their own job to take their focus away from the distraction and tune into school.
