Evette Reay, a senior at West Side High School in Dayton, Idaho, thought she would wear a special dress to celebrate the last day of her senior year, not expecting that she would be suspended for violating a school rule: her dress was a few inches above the knee.
To add insult to injury, she was suspended 30 minutes before the last bell of the last class of the last day of her last high school year.
Reay did not think her cute mint green dress would put her in suspension, but when teacher Legrand Leavitt asked her to go home and change her outfit because her dress was too short, she said she wouldn't do it.
Her defiance was met with a threat that the teacher would inform the school superintendent of her disobedience and that the school would withhold her diploma if she did not comply.
Leavitt told Reay, "You do realize that I could hold your diploma for insubordination," Reay told the local ABC affiliate.
Although she thought this was a bit extreme, she decided to call and ask her mother to bring her a change of clothes.
Unfortunately, before she hung up, she was already suspended for insubordination.
The graduating student felt like she was being singled out.
"I felt like I was being picked on," she said. "It was last day, I was thinking, 'I'm graduating,' that's why I wore the dress. I wanted to feel good about myself," she added, according to Inquisitr.
The school principal and Leavitt told the teenager's mother that Reay responded rudely when she was asked to change her dress.
The school district superintendent of West Side gave no comment, saying that state and federal laws do not permit him to disclose disciplinary concerns. "In my opinion," he said, "there must be a lull in news if you are covering this story," The Huffington Post reported.
If he is silent about the issue, other people certainly aren't. According to Boston University professor Carrie Preston, dress codes such as those imposed in Reay's school can make women believe that exposing a bit of skin is a bad thing.
"It's certainly going to give women the idea that the exposure of their bodies is a negative thing," she said, according to the Huffington Post. "There's discomfort with the sexuality of minors, but these concerns are not best addressed by dress codes."
