Twelve-Year-Old Keeps Getting Asked To Leave School Over Her Pants Before Mom Fights Back

Dec 20, 2020 by apost team

School dress codes have become a hot topic for controversy over the past couple of years. Proponents of a dress code say that it helps maintain an orderly school environment, while those who oppose them say they are often used to target young women and do a lot to discourage individual expression.

With the recent female empowerment movement sweeping the nation, dress codes are being targeted and challenged more often. There are cases where parents are stepping up to back up their students. For one young lady, Morgan Bentley from Indianapolis, her mother came out to support her daughter after repeated suspensions in 2015.

Morgan, the Indianapolis pre-teen at the center of this story from 2015, was a petite girl. Her mother, Traci Hull, reported having a hard time finding clothes that would fit her. As can be the case with some clothes for people who are smaller than others, the length would often be right, but the waist was too big.

Luckily, Morgan was able to find some skinny jeans that fit. The pre-teen wore the jeans throughout the school year until one fateful day when she was told that her pants were "too tight." Morgan was given a two-day suspension from school, reports Daily Mail.

The Situation Escalates

For Morgan, the news that her pants did not meet the dress code requirements was quite confusing and shocking. After all, she had been wearing the pants all year up to that point. “She is completely covered,” said Traci. “There is no cleavage or anything exposed.”

After the two-day suspension ended, the young lady headed back to school with another pair of skinny jeans. She received another dress-code reprimand from the administration. With no other pants to wear, Morgan went back to school for a third day with a different set of jeans. She received another notification that her pants were in violation of the dress code.

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"We switched pants three different times,” said Morgan’s father, Rodney Bentley, to WTHR. “And three different times they sent her home.”

At this point, the 12-year old had no idea what to do. The school, Franklin Township Community School Corporation, was stating that her jeans were too form-fitting to her legs, and she had no other options. She was given a choice to trade in her pants or serve two more suspensions for the violations, reports Daily Mail. This was shaping up to be a huge issue. Luckily, the young woman was not on her own.

Traci was not pleased with her daughter's suspension and could not understand the issue with the way her daughter was dressed.

"I feel like there's nothing inappropriate about a skinny jean. I'm her mother, I am not going to send her in anything that I feel is inappropriate," Traci said to WTHR.

The mother was not going to let her little girl continue to have issues at school. That is when she decided to bring the issue to the attention of the media.

Speaking to a local news station, Traci let the public know about the dress code issues that Morgan had been experiencing. She expressed her frustration with the dress code and how the administration seemed more obsessed with what her daughter was wearing and not her education. “She is not getting a proper education, she is behind in school and we are spending now two days focused on pants that are too tight,” Traci told WRTV Indianapolis.

"It's unfathomable to me that there is this big of an issue on dress code and not her education," Traci added.

Together with her dad, Morgan then went shopping at different stores to look for jeans that the school would deem as appropriate for students to wear.

"Me and Morgan went to Kohl's and Target and we spent over two hours there going through sweat pants, zero fitting jeans, everything, and none of them would fit her," Bentley said. "There were a couple of them that would have been fine to me, as a father letting my girl go to school in, they would have sent her back home again."

Morgan’s mother expressed her concern about how this situation would affect Morgan’s self-esteem. She said, "To go into that fitting room and to try on several different clothes and for them to not fit you appropriately, or for her to think that it doesn't fit her appropriately, or that someone is going to judge her, of course it's going to affect her self-esteem. It's heartbreaking to us.”

"We were there for over two hours and she was crying during the process of doing it," added Morgan’s dad.

The school responded that the dress code helped keep an orderly environment and has refused to back down. A statement was released by Dr. Flora Reichanadter, Superintendent of the Franklin Township Community School Corporation shortly after the story made the news. It read:

"As a high-performing school district, the Franklin Township Community School Corporation believes in maintaining a safe and orderly school environment. There are and will be times in which some styles of clothing are not appropriate or conducive to the school environment and should be kept as an option outside of school. Our school handbook is very specific regarding the dress code for middle school students."

Despite the result, Traci had succeeded in putting the spotlight on the issue and getting her daughter's struggle out there. She also added how this issue is further enabling the issue of bullying. "Bullying is already a huge factor here,” Traci said. “And to have it feel like the school is bullying, adults are bullying, welcome to the real world, Morgan.”

This story calls attention to the difficult issues surrounding dress codes. While they can serve a purpose, they can often be arbitrary and are unfairly targeted at young women. This is a good reminder that we should be having a conversation about these issues in our communities and trying to find ways to keep issues like this from occurring.

What are your thoughts on dress codes? Do you feel like schools should have them? Show this to the parents in your life and let us know where you land on this hot-button topic.