http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/25/1474839/-Teenager-forced-to-kneel-to-test-her-skirt-for-dress-code-violation?detail=email

When I read this story, I first thought of how LDS bishops could tell how LDS women were wearing the proper undergarments. Then I thought about how the same group interview 12-year-old males and females about mastaurbation. Then I thought: "Are we going backwards or what!" This kind of sexist misogynist behavior should not be tolerated inside or outside Mormonism, but it is!

"“I didn’t really appreciate having to get down on my knees, especially while I was in a dress,” she said.

She said the first time Hodges measured her, she was in dress code, with 5 inches. However, she said Hodges then made her walk across the room with her hands up and kneel back down, to check if her dress would ride up."

Ew.

Ew! is right! They did this back in the 60's and early 70's in public school. Disgusting!

A couple of years ago at a golf tournament in Oregon, they (older, conservative women) made the women players do this. Strangely enough, there were some players from abroad who were wearing shorter skirts/shorts and were not made to do this. It was embarrassing!

At my daughter's high school in the morridor, shorts/skirts had to be fingertip length. My very tall daughter was always getting stopped in the halls--pretty hard to find shorts long enough! She finally resorted to wearing boys board shorts to school to have some peace!

Ridiculous and sexist!

What about some enforcement at the appearance of some school employees? I have seen them in sandals, dirty clothes and for god's sake, do kids have to stand his nasty beard? - Sorry I don't mind any of this but I hate the double standards.

And the point of kneeling is??? Sounds like a way to just demean the person.

Surely you can tell as easily how long a dress is while still standing.

And she had on black tights too, which girls didn't bother with back in the first days of mini skirts when I was a teen. Shoot, some of my classmates had skirts that were so short there wasn't even enough to sit on.

The point absolutely is to demean and shame.

The kneeling is to have the point from which to measure the inappropriate heathen skirt length. But the action of kneeling usually forces the skirt to ride up a bit, too, giving the "measurer" more fodder unless the skirt wearer is quick to pull it down.

It's a more extreme version of the "skirts must be no shorter than the tips of the fingers when arms are at the wearer's sides" that I had when I was in school (80s-early 90s).

Yes, demeaning and with sexual/control overtones, for sure. Because of two experiences I was subjected to as a child and teen, I would like to see girls empowered to say, "I respectfully decline. Please call my parents immediately."

The vast majority of educators are excellent, hard working, people. But there are some sick puppies out there, and a situation like this can be very damaging to the young woman subjected to it.

The first situation (4th grade) I caved in to the punishment. The second one, I said a strong and resounding "No, I will not take a swat in front of the class! I did nothing wrong!"

Guess which one I don't feel sick about!

The "I respectfully decline; please call my parents..." is a great idea, but I think it would need to be presaged with a letter from the parents at the start of the school year.

There is a strong basis for considering the school authorities to be 'in loco parentis' but advance notice that the parents or guardians are drawing a line as to the extent of the in loco parentis would be a good idea.

If a school authority wants to unilaterally decree that the minor has violated the dress code, fine, but to compel the minor to perform like a trained seal, nah, fuck that.

"I would like to see girls empowered to say, "I respectfully decline. Please call my parents immediately.""

But- her parents were there! If I was her Dad, I wouldn't have let her get on her knees. And if the Principal persisted, he would've lost some teeth.

I can't believe the Dad let him go that far. At the kneeling request, I would've informed him that he was two steps away from a lawsuit & one step away from losing his teeth.

Alas in the 60s we had to kneel in school to test the length of our skirts. In fact you had to wear a skirt or dress no shorts. NO pants no coulottes. In home ec we hemmed our dresses exactly to the 4 inch rule. Of course we did have snaps to hike it up higher and on the way to the office we unsnapped the hem

My sisters, who attended the Y in the '60s, told me how ole' Ernie Wilkinson was into having female students do the kneeling test.

Seriously, I can't imagine how all of the female students wore skirts to class in that snow! Maybe some of you here survived that experience. We grew up in Phoenix and didn't have snow except on a couple of historic occasions. Anyone have any YBU anecdotes to relate?

La de dah, I do miss those days of yore when men were men and women ironed our underwear.

Now all these newfangled women and their ways! It STILL amazes me to see a woman start a conversation with a man she knows, without him first signaling permission!!!

I left high school in 1962, even though I know I could have beat those charges, and the dress code covered both sexes. As future human beings, the young men were to always have their shirts tucked in and at our high school, had to wear a belt, which meant that the most popular male fashion item, 501 Levis with the cuffs turned under, a crease ironed in and the belt loops removed, was verboten. Meaning that we all wore 501 Levis thusly altered, with our shirt tails out. And we all got swats from Mr. Bitz.

It was always a visual treat on football Fridays to see the cheerleaders walking around the campus in their short, short skirts, showing all all that thigh!

As ghawd is my witness, I went my whole life having never kissed a cheerleader, until I fell in love with La Saucie. Gimme a "K", gimmie an "I"....

In our small town high school (many lds and other somewhat fundamentalist), the mother of one of the cheerleaders pitched a fit because the skirts were so short. She wanted knee length skirts on her daughter and all of the girls! Even in our town, it didn't fly.

The last time I saw knee length skirts on cheerleaders was in the late 1950's when I was in 3rd grade in a K-12 school in the Iowa farmlands.

On the other hand, in that 1950's school, there was a girl's basketball team and the girls wore either short "skorts" or shorts that are like today's jogging shorts rather than the saggy long shorts worn by today's girl's basketball players.

I attended Catholic school in another state, where the kneel-down test was common to make sure we weren't hiking up the uniform skirts to distracting shortness (which we did, a lot). It didn't feel demeaning, though, because the nun administering the test would kneel with us, reminding us gently that we represented both the school and our faith at all times, in the way we dressed, acted, and treated others, and that our keeping the school code was part of that responsibility.

The nuns also cited the boys for uniform violations, like not having their shirts buttoned up all the way, not wearing an undershirt, or wearing non-uniform pants (Levis cords, etc.), and gave them the same kind of treatment. Girls were not singled out.

"Kneel before ZOG!"

I had to do the kneel in the high council room at the gran blanc stake center in Michigan. I wore a really "mod" red and black dress with tights, but it was on the short side, so I had to kneel. I mean, it'snot like they were going to kick me out of super Saturday, I had to wait for my ride the hour+ home.

The sp let it go. Haha. This was in the early 80's

Grossss bet they loved it!

Seems to me like teaching young girls always to kneel when older men command them to do so is a lot less 'modest' than just letting them wear the damn skirt....

I think the real issue here is why does everyone have to conform to the ridiculous moral standards that school administrators arbritrarily apply to students? It's one thing if someone's outfit is distracting or offensive (according to the standards of normal society, not Mormon or fundamentalist Christians), but it's quite another when peters fly appropriate outfits are nitpicked with a damn ruler. Public schools are like their own little dominions nowadays, and students have little recourse when they are bullied by school administration.

Nooo, then they're always too low, too high, too tight, too many pockets, etc. Often schools have a no jeans policy. My school didn't allow cargo pants either.

Hmmm, schoolgirl in a short dress kneeling down in front of the principal...he probably came to school the next morning with his wrist in a splint.