Teen boy wears crop top to protest unfair school dress code

A teen in his final year of school decided to test his school’s dress code to see if it was, well, let’s say “unfair”, by wearing something more controversial than the usual uniform.  

“I wanted to see, well, if the girls are getting dress coded for that, what if I do it?,” 17-year-old Phillip Rodriguez told Today Style.

Image: Twitter/@philemonimon

In this case, “that” was a self-styled crop top that revealed his shoulders and stomach.

The night before his experiment, Rodriguez put the call out to his classmates on Twitter.

“All these girls at HHS [Rodriguez' school] getting dress coded for showing too much; ima bout to see if I could get dress coded for the same thing,” he wrote.

Image: Twitter/@philemonimon

The South California senior then asked for suggestions on what kind of clothing might do the trick.

Image: Twitter/@philemonimon

“Show your shoulders,” one girl replied.

“Showing stomach,” wrote another.

With commendable enthusiasm, Rodriguez did both.

But the next day: tumbleweeds.

“In 3rd period now,” he wrote. “So far I’ve just gotten little warnings to put something on but nothing serious.”

Image: Twitter/@philemonimon

By the end of the day, having received no punishment, he realised he’d proved his point.

“UPDATE: I’m in 6th period water polo and I have not gotten dress coded. The day is practically over,” he wrote, posting from a school bathroom.

Image: Twitter/@philemonimon

“I think we all have our answer.”

Rodrigue told Today Style the idea came to him after female schoolmates had gotten into trouble during an unseasonal heatwave in late October. Some had been told to change, others had apparently simply been sent home.

“It was very hot,” he said, “so they wore stuff that would reveal their shoulders, or a little stomach here and there. And shorts. But they would always get dress coded for it. I felt that wasn’t exactly right.”

Now the sartorial justice vigilante is going viral.

“In the school’s defense,” he said to Yahoo Style, “ they say it’s ‘distracting’ and we students can’t learn because of the way these women dress.

“[But] I’ve never been asked if how women dressed affected my education.”

He added that his teachers had largely taken the whole thing as a joke, and leading him to conclude his message hadn’t really “gone through".

“I might do it again,” he said.

“And I might get some more guys to do it with me. They would love to do it.”

Watch this space.

Listen to the latest episode of 9Honey's podcast series Life Bites here:

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