by Jarred James Breaux

Created on: March 25, 2008

Louisiana introduced public school uniforms in 1999. And despite objections based on freedom of speech, public school uniforms were well received among the populous in the aftermath of several school shootings around the nation. However, because the majority accepts or passes a certain law that does not necessarily make it "right." Public school uniforms restrict student's freedom of speech and should be abolished. Furthermore, the premises for which the school uniform policies are based are faulty and fail in practice.

A premise for passing the mandate for school uniforms is to stop teasing. Officials and parents believed that if all the students looked the same, then this would deter bullying and teasing based on clothing. Typically, there is some bullying that goes on between students based on owning name brand clothing and owning Dollar General brand clothing; however, this line of bullying tends to remain in an elementary setting. At the time, school shootings were taking place primarily in high school settings, where bullying is based on more serious forms of discrimination and malice, not so much clothing style. Thus, the establishment of the school uniform policy to deter bullying that leads to school shootings is flawed because a completely different and more serious form of bullying takes place in high school.

Another premise was to give the illusion that all the students were equal by appearing to look the same. The majority of the school uniform policies focuses mainly on navy polo shirts and kaki pants and fails to issue policies against name brand clothing or shoes. Other than mandating closed-toe conditions, shoes have been neglected in the school uniform policy. Elementary bullying has now transferred from "who has the latest Abercrombie jeans" to "who has the latest Nike shoes." Furthermore, wearing name brand clothing is not banned, but rather the displaying of the name brand on the clothing is banned. Many up scale clothing brands, such as Banana Republic, do not display symbols or logos that are significantly large in size. In my parish, a one-inch by two-inch logo is allowed to be displayed on clothing. This allotment of a logo allows for girls in high school to show status by wearing name brand clothing or by sewing a small logo to the shirt.

In the effort to make all students "equal," school uniforms have placed an extra burden on lower-middle class parents. Parents now have to buy both school uniforms and casual clothing for their child. And since young children grow fast, often the parent is forced to buy more clothing more often because of the need for school uniforms. This extra burden is especially bad on lower-middle class parents who do not qualify for uniform assistance programs, such as hand-me-down programs or rebates provided by organizations.

Another problem arises is acquisition of school uniforms. While major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Macy's, and J.C. Penny have small sections of their store dedicated to "school approved" clothing, during the August rush, many of these places sell out of certain sizes. Furthermore, school uniform policies favor certain stores over others by providing new regulation information only to certain retailers or by intentionally issuing new regulation to alienate certain stores.

While regulating clothing styles to limit vulgarity and obscenity in a public institution is important, mandating certain styles of clothing is a restriction on our freedom of speech. School uniforms will one day be overturned based on freedom of speech restrictions, the same way the arm bands were overturned during the Vietnam War. All the premises fail in practice and school uniforms cause more problems than solve them.

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