As the weather heats up, shorts and tank tops replace jeans and sweaters, which for many schools causes dress code violations. According to Jessica Willingham of bustle.com, “Things are heating up again in the schools vs. females in the great dress code debate.”

The Arrowhead High School dress policy states the following:

“a. Dress and grooming which disrupts the educational process or which causes health or safety problems is prohibited.

1. Coats, hats, and other outer garments must be stored in school lockers.” According to Adl.org, “Student dress codes recently made headlines because several groups of students—predominately girls—began to question and protest school dress codes because they thought the policies were unfair. Their words quickly traveled via social media and news articles.”

Another viral instance caused by increased media coverage of such issues occurred at Haven Middle School in Evanston, Illinois. Over 500 students signed a petition against their dress code banning yoga pants. Students then collectively wore yoga pants to school and argued they just wanted to be comfortable and shouldn’t be labeled as a distraction.

Bella Mueller, a senior at Arrowhead High school says, “I certainly think some dress code rules need to be updated and tweaked, but in all it’s important to have dress codes for obvious reasons such as stopping kids from wearing shirts with inappropriate references, undergarments showing, etc. As the weather heats up, however, it does get more difficult to find shorts and tops that are modest enough for the school dress code.”

Laura Bromberg of the Huffington Post says in her article, Your Dress Code Is A Bully, “By making dress codes about modesty, it encourages boys to view girls who are less modest as less deserving of respect.”

Another dress code violation gone viral involved Carey Burgess, a high school senior in South Carolina who posted a photo along with a rant about being sent home on social media in October. The photo caught the attention of many who disagreed with her school’s decision.

According to Rebecca Lurye, of The Beaufort Gazette, “By 2 p.m. Wednesday, a day after she took to Facebook, Burgess’ words and a picture of her outfit had garnered about 45 comments, 300 likes and 2,100 shares.”

However, not all agree with such opposition to dress codes. Ally del Morte, a 16 year old from New Milford, CT, told scholastic.com, “Girls in my school often complain about not being able to wear tank tops or yoga pants, but does that mean dress codes are sexist? No! While they often focus more on girls’ clothes rather than boys’, that’s just because girls have more clothing options—which include more revealing choices too.”