Florida scandal: school edited 80 photos of female graduates to look 'modest'

The administration of a school in the US state of Florida decided to edit photographs of 80 schoolgirls for the graduation album to make them more “modest”. The schoolgirls’ shoulders and too-exposed cleavages were retouched in the photographs, writes Air force... Much more candid photos of the boys were not touched.

Photo: Shutterstock

Bartram Trail School officials told reporters that the photos did not comply with the school's dress code, which requires students to wear "modest" blouses.

The Bartram Trail School website says the graduation album photos can be edited to match the dress code.

However, the schoolgirls claim that the photographs were edited without asking permission from those depicted in them. In addition, the students accuse the administration of sexism. They note that the administration left the photographs of male schoolchildren unchanged, although they also violated the dress code.

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“This is a clear double standard in our yearbook. They looked at us and decided that if we showed a little of our body, it would be sexualization,” 15-year-old student Riley O'Keefe told local TV station WJAX News. “But they didn’t have any questions about the pictures of the boys, like the swim team and other sports pictures, and that’s, of course, very sad and upsetting.”

Photo: video frame YouTube / ews4JAX

The school district told WJAX News that the school had previously simply refused to post pictures that did not match the dress code. But this year the pictures were changed so that all students could see themselves in the graduation album.

New scandal

However, after a wave of criticism against the school, its administration agreed to return the money ($ 100) to parents who are unhappy with the changes made to the schoolgirls' clothes.

The school's dress code states that women's blouses and shirts "must fully cover the shoulders" and be "modest and not too revealing or distracting." “Excessive makeup” is also prohibited, and all schoolchildren must not have “extravagant hairstyles.”

According to the school district, each school has the right to independently decide how tightly it is necessary to enforce the dress code.

Another dress code scandal erupted at Bartram Trail School this year. In one day, 31 schoolchildren were immediately warned for violating the rules regarding clothing. At the same time, several schoolgirls complained that they were forced to unbutton their sweaters and jackets in front of everyone to show that there were T-shirts or underwear under them.

Photo: video frame YouTube / ews4JAX

Riley O'Keefe then created an online petition asking for a change to the dress code, which she said was "clearly based on the sexualization of girls." When the American federal media began to talk about the story of the blacked-out photographs of schoolgirls, more and more signatures began to appear on the petition - now more than 5 thousand people supported it.

In recent years, the dress code in American schools has been criticized. Many say that its use leads to the fact that schoolgirls begin to feel ashamed of their bodies.

In 2018, the Women's Law Center in Washington, DC concluded that dark-skinned schoolgirls and those with larger builds suffered more from this approach to the body than others.

“Badly photoshopped”

Stephanie Fabre, Riley O'Keeffe's mother, told the BBC the photo story "brought attention to an issue that wasn't really an issue."

“Looking at this year’s graduation album, anyone would think only one thing - what beautiful ninth-graders! - she says. “But because of such editing of photographs, some schoolgirls began to be bullied en masse, they are very worried. Because their pictures were so poorly photoshopped that people started making memes out of them and sending them to each other via Snapchat. It's horrible!".

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Fabre says some parents have demanded that the school apologize, change its dress code and reprint the yearbook with unedited photos of their children.

However, not all parents are against the rules. Another Bartram Trail student's mom, Rachel D'Akin, told WJAX News that she supports photo editing.

“If parents cannot explain to their daughters that they should dress modestly at school, then the school itself has to do this,” she said.

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