Like more than 30 other girls, I was one of the victims.  I walked into school on Thursday, August 30, wearing running shorts, and within 5 minutes a teacher tapped me on the shoulder.  “Athletic shorts,” she said, “too baggy.  You need to go to the small auditorium.” 

            So I did, except I had to borrow a phone first to call home.  My mom sounded irritated, and she had no idea when she could get to the school to bring me other pants.  So I sign in at the small auditorium, wishing I could’ve found one of my friends in the hall and asked for sweatpants.

            Turns out they were in the small auditorium.

            One of them is missing a math quiz.  The other one is tearing up.  Someone tries to take a picture of everyone, but no one wants to be in it.  They’re all ashamed.  Girls go up to the adults supervising us.  “Are they really too short?”

            A lot of times, the supervisors say, “No, I wouldn’t have sent you.”

            But that doesn’t seem to matter.  They all have to stay anyway, missing class for shorts that “aren’t really” too short.

            After school, I go to the deans’ office to show them my shorts, and they told me I shouldn’t have gotten busted, so why did I?

            What I’m asking for is consistency.  I understand that we want an environment free of distraction, but this is a big distraction.  Many girls were told that they shouldn’t have been sent, and others walked around school with tiny shorts on all day.  The overall message: any shorts are fair game, it all depends on which teacher sees you.  The result: everyone’s afraid to wear shorts.

            Of course, we would wear longer shorts, if we could find them.  Believe it or not, my friends were not upset because they desperately want to expose one more inch of leg.  Honestly, it’s really hard to find shorts that are longer.  I went to a camp with a dress code over the summer, and needed to buy long shorts.  We looked in several stores and were met with the same thing in every one.  There are really short shorts and really long knee-reaching ones, not anything in between (unless you buy shorts meant for older women, “mom shorts”).  It may sound trivial, but it creates a relatively big problem.

            Really, what I’m asking for is consistency, and maybe a little leniency.  Someone needs to look at the people who are being sent to the small auditorium and give a final opinion, preferably a dean.  It’s important to enforce the dress code, but the dress code was not being enforced.  Several different personal codes were, and at the end of the day, a lot of girls were still showing some booty.