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54 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 49 (2019)
Of Dress and Redress: Student Dress Restrictions in Constitutional Law and Culture

handle is hein.journals/hcrcl54 and id is 55 raw text is: Of Dress and Redress: Student Dress Restrictions in Constitutional Law and Culture Deborah M. Ahrens* & Andrew M. Siegelt Over the last twenty years, a substantial and increasing percentage of pub- lic school students have been required to wear school uniforms or adhere to strict dress codes. They have done so in a cultural and legal landscape that assumes such restrictions pose few-if any-constitutional problems. As this Article argues, however, this landscape is relatively new; as recently as forty years ago, the legal and cultural assumptions about student dress codes were completely reversed, with the majority of educators and commentators assuming that our constitutional commitments to equality, autonomy, and free expression preclude strict student dress restrictions. This Article explores the history of this evolution as a case study in the messy process through which constitutional law interacts with politics and culture, at times developing without significant judi- cial reflection or, indeed, participation. Major cultural developments in parent- ing, schooling, policing, gender, and race relations interacted with shifting political dynamics and economic factors to change our frames and alter public and judicial perception of the scope of underlying constitutional rights. In this Article, we explain these previously obscured changes in constitutional law and culture, explore their implications for constitutional theory, and argue for their reversal. While the underlying constitutional case law is sufficiently indetermi- nate to support either era's approach, the approach we reconstruct in this Arti- cle better serves our children and our constitutional values. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...................................................... 50 1. PUBLIC SCHOOL DRESS CODES AND SCHOOL UNIWORMS IN TH4E UNITED STATES: AN EVOLVING HISTORY .............. 55 A. The Long View: Limited and Informal Regulation of Dress as the Initial Norm ........................... 55 B. A First Wave of Restrictions and Challenges: Taking Student Liberties Seriously .......................... 56 * William C. Oltman Professor of Teaching Excellence, Seattle University School of Law. BA, Brown University; JD, New York University School of Law; MPP, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. tAssociate Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law. BA, Yale University; JD, New York University School of Law; MA in History, Princeton University. Earlier versions of this Article were presented at the Annual Meeting of the Law & Society Association and at a faculty summer workshop at Seattle University. We would like to thank Jan Ainsworth, Brooke Coleman, Sid DeLong, Charlotte Garden, Lily Kahng, Ron Krotoszynski, and the other partici- pants at those events for their helpful comments; Kell Brauer for his research assistance; and Juliet Ahrens-Siegel for the inspiration and insight she provided on this complicated topic.

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