Why Turlock teen girls are protesting, and school district’s plan to update dress code

A number of girls attended Pitman and Turlock high schools Monday wearing midriff-baring tops, in violation of the Turlock Unified School District’s dress code.

By their clothing choice, some were inadvertently joining a protest. Others strolled onto campus with their bellies showing for a cause: standing up to a dress code they say is discriminatory.

The protest came after Pitman High School senior Olivia Millentree was suspended for wearing a crop top, even though the shirt and her high-waisted leggings covered her entire stomach, multiple students say. Her stomach would have been visible if she had worn lower-waisted pants because the shirt is short.

Following the May 10 incident, Millentree came onto campus during lunch to apologize for her actions, despite being warned by administrators that she would be trespassing. She was later arrested by the campus resource officer and lost the ability to walk the stage for graduation, according to the Turlock Journal.

Another Pitman student, McKenzie Calvird, then started an online petition in an effort to reform the dress code. The petition, which has over 2,000 signatures, says the dress code targets girls.

“Not only do these types of rules unfairly target female students, sexualize minors, and humiliate/shame women for their bodies, but they promote the belief that male students are unable to control themselves. They reinforce that a male student’s education (heaven forbid they be distracted by someone’s shoulder) is more important than a female student’s education,” the petition states.

District to update code

Marie Russell, chief communication coordinator for TUSD, said in an email to The Bee that the district is looking to update the dress code. “Both Turlock and Pitman High Schools are gathering student input and will be following a process to revise the TUSD Dress Code in collaboration with Student Services and our 7-12 site PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) teams,” she said.

Riley Guffey, a senior at Pitman High School, said she decided to take part in Monday’s protest after noticing that some slender girls are able to get away with dress code violations, while more full-figured girls are disciplined. “You see girls walk around here with tank tops and they’re skinnier and you don’t see them get dress-coded. It’s just very wrong,” she said.

Dominique White-Bodiker, a senior at Turlock High School, said by text message that she heard about the protest through an Instagram account called “TUSD dress code protest.”

“So many students are being sexualized and harassed for wearing normal clothing in hot weather,” she said. “The dress code is outdated and it needs to be changed.”

Furthermore, White-Bodiker said the dress code is not enforced for boys like it is for girls. Boys get to walk around campus shirtless, in muscle tank tops and small shorts. She said the football players even have crop-top shirts the school provides for them.

The dress code, posted on the district’s website, doesn’t specify gender when it says, “See-through clothing, clothing that reveals a bare midriff or chest, or clothes that expose the body in a sexually suggestive manner are not acceptable.”

Tacit approval?

The petition also claims that enforcement of the dress code lacks consistency when it comes to members of the associated student body. On the official Instagram account for the Pitman High School ASB, a post shows multiple girls wearing crop tops at a school event.

The post “supports that the outfits themselves are not ‘inappropriate’ or ‘immodest’ at all, to the point that the teacher photographing the students and the administrators that caused it to be posted to Instagram failed to even notice that the clothing violated the dress code,” states the petition.

Margaret Kirkpatrick, a senior at Pitman High School, said she believes she gets dress-coded because her body is more developed than some other girls who get away with wearing similar attire. “It’s humiliating and it made me feel uncomfortable that I was being looked at in a sexual manner,” she said.

Though Kirkpatrick said she’s not wearing a crop top because she’s afraid to lose the opportunity to walk at graduation, she used a marker to write on her arms, “Stop sexualizing minors,” “I am not a distraction” and “I am more than an object.” She added that the dress code contributes to rape culture by reinforcing the notion that woman ask for rape by wearing certain types of clothing.

“It teaches young, impressionable girls that they are to blame for their male peers’ inappropriate behavior, rather than educating the male students on how to respect us and control themselves,” she said.

This story was originally published May 20, 2021 at 4:41 AM.