Meet Carey Burgess, a 17-year-old student in Southern California. By all accounts, Burgess is a smart and successful young woman. She’s even the student body president of Beaufort High School.
But Burgess’s social media accounts are now going viral because she wrote an impassioned response to being suspended from school… for wearing a skirt. Not an itty-bitty mini skirt – a regular, modest skirt. According to Burgess, she was dressing up for a presentation. She believed she was within the school’s dress code, which states that skirts have to be “of sufficient length.”
The khaki skirt Carey wore to school seems to fit the bill, and Carey maintains that she’s worn the exact skirt in question many times before. However, one teacher made it her business to publicly shame Burgess and order her to go home and change.
According to Buzzfeed, the suspended teen posted photos of the outfit in question on Instagram and Facebook and received an outpouring of support. Check out the “offensive” outfit below and Burgess’s impassioned response to her suspension.
This isn’t the first unfair dress code issue we’ve covered, and we doubt it’ll be the last. Please SHARE if you feel that Burgess’s outfit is nothing to be sent home over, and if you feel that many of these dress codes are incredibly unfair to young women.
Here is the outfit that got Carey Burgess suspended.
“I have worn the same skirt at least dozen times and have never had any trouble with it,” Burgess told BuzzFeed News.
Carey's Instagram post is heartbreaking, and shows how stringent dress codes can be detrimental to young women's self-esteem:
“As I was walking down the hallway, I heard a voice behind me. “Your skirt is too short. You need to go to in-school suspension and then go home.” Thank you, Mrs. Woods. Thank you for teaching me that looking good for school is NOT appropriate. Thank you for letting me know that while I may think that I am dressing up for my Teacher Cadet lesson, I am in fact dressing to go to a night club or the whore house. Thank you for bringing me to tears in front of my friends and classmates because you do not have the decency to pull me aside and explain the problem.”
Dress codes are in place because school officials claim that certain types of girls clothing is “too distracting” for young men. Laci Green, a video blogger and sex education advocate, breaks down exactly why that’s problematic (and extremely sexist) in the video below.
Please SHARE with your friends in support of Carey Burgess if you think she should have been allowed to stay in school!
