School Uniforms

In 1993, Will Rogers Middle School in California’s Long Beach County School District began discussing the idea of a school-wide uniform policy. That fall, Will Rogers became the first school in Long Beach County to have a mandatory uniform policy. Other schools in the district soon followed drawing national attention, including a personal visit from then President Clinton. Recent memories of school shootings around the nation caused President Clinton to urge other school districts to move to uniforms in his 1996 State of the Union Address. This started a seemingly endless debate over school uniforms in public schools. In order to be legal, every uniform policy has to have an option to not participate. Students that “opt-out” attend other schools that do not have uniform policies.

Most Republicans and the more moderate Democrats are in favor of uniforms while the more liberal Democrats oppose them. People in favor of uniforms support them for several reasons cited in a US Government manual on school uniforms:

• decrease in violence and theft—even life threatening situations—among students over designer clothing or expensive sneakers;
• prevention of gang members wearing gang colors and insignias at school;
• instilling students with discipline;
• helping parents and students resist peer pressure to buy expensive clothing;
• helping students concentrate on their school work; and helping school officials to recognize intruders who come to the school. (“Manual” par. 2)

People against uniforms oppose them for several reasons: uniforms violate the first amendment right to freedom of expression; the claims of the supporters are not true, and problems in the schools are much bigger than a little answer like uniforms. Uniforms will just make things worse. Most of the arguments used on both sides are logos, but the anti-uniform side has some key ethos appeals. Uniforms definitely have some good qualities, but they are not the answer to all the problems in... [continues]

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