Public School and rights

[AbsentVirtue]

Is it legal for my high school to punish me for having long hair since i am male. Also they say that males cant have earings. Wouldnt this be sexual descrimination. If this is illegal is there anything i can do protest any punishments they try and give me?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Originally posted by AbsentVirtue
Is it legal for my high school to punish me for having long hair since i am male. Also they say that males cant have earings. Wouldnt this be sexual descrimination. If this is illegal is there anything i can do protest any punishments they try and give me?

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District is the seminal case which children won the right to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. It has been used in many applications since then. Note Bivens ex rel. Green v. Albuquerque Pub. Schs., 899 F.Supp. 556 (D.N.M. 1995) (the wearing of a particular type or style of clothing is not expressive conduct protected under the Constitution).

Some cases have upheld the ban on male students wearing jewelry, but it is not as extreme as your case. Oleson v. Board of Education of School District No. 228, 676 F. Supp. 820 (1987) (upholding a school anti-gang policy that forbade the wearing of gang symbols, jewelry or emblems, as applied to a male student who wore an earring to school).

It would seem that if the dress code bore a rational relation to preventing some interference with the learning and educational process than that would be permissible. Do you have any information as to the purpose of the rule?