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Will banning hoodies in school reduce gang violence or is it
an inherently
biased policy targeting persons of color? Photo: Denise Chan |Wikimedia. |
Two schools in Worcester, Massachusetts are concerned about
gang violence in their halls. So they've taken steps. Have they installed
hallway cameras? Metal detectors at the doors? Private security or any of the
other controversial but effective deterrents?
No, they've gone a different path.
The Worcester school administrators have decided that
banning hoodies in will prevent violence. They argue that hoodies easily hide a
person's face and weapons, according to Principal Maureen Binienda at one of
the schools, South High Community School. The other school in the ban is
Burncoat High School.
“I’m
just convinced if you don’t wear that hooded sweatshirts during school, it will
make our community safer,” said Binienda.
Students and their parents weren't pleased to learn about
the ban on the first day of class. According to a Burncoat Senior, about
three-quarters of the student body wear hoodies daily. Parents are also
incensed that the ban wasn't declared farther in advance, before back-to-school
shopping took place.
Schools have the authority to create and implement dress
codes. Most of them are created to control chaos on campus by preventing
students from wearing clothing printed or decorated with offensive language or
comments. Dress codes have been established to prevent students from wearing
sagging pants, exposing midriffs, or body piercings. Most
policies that prevent students from wearing gang-related clothing are usually
upheld.
Students at both
schools have started a petition to reverse the ban. In the meantime, plenty
are simply defying it, tucking their hoods inside the shirt to pass door
monitors. If they're caught at the door, they aren't allowed inside with the
hoodie. Instead, they're offered a loan of a hoodless school sweatshirt. The
band at South High is also using the opportunity to make some money selling
'legal' sweatshirts.
It's hard not to view this decision of the school committee
in the light of recent events. At both of these schools, students of color are
the majority. Are they being cast under the same profiling net that let the
media call Trayvon Martin a thug for dying while wearing a gray hoodie?
As a note of interest, the loaner sweatshirts that the
school is providing in lieu of somehow violence-related hoodies are printed
with the school's mascot: a Civil War officer firing his pistols in the air.
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