ACLU blasts
graduation female
dress code

It is challenging a rule requiring
dresses for girls at a Maui school

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By Lisa Asato
lasato@starbulletin.com

The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii is challenging a requirement by Baldwin High School that female students wear dresses under their graduation gowns.

ACLU legal director Brent White said the dress code -- requiring girls to wear dresses and boys to wear slacks and shirts -- violates the federal and state constitutional protections against sexual discrimination.

He said the group will sue the school's principal, Stephen Yamada, if Baldwin High does not rescind or change the policy and give females the option of wearing slacks, just as it does the males.

"It is a simple matter, it's a common sense matter," White said. "Schools should just do the right thing. We shouldn't be arguing over this. It's very clear they can't make a girl wear a dress any more than they can make a boy wear a dress."

ACLU is getting involved on behalf of senior Ivy Kaanana, who has been told she won't be allowed to march in the May 31 ceremony if she doesn't wear a dress.

"My goal is to see my daughter walk that line," said Helen Rosaga, Ivy's mother. Rosaga said her daughter wears men's shorts and T-shirts to school and has not worn a dress since about the sixth grade.

Rosaga said she was told by Philip Gilbert, one of the school's vice principals, that her daughter would not be able to walk if she did not wear a dress. Rosaga said her suggestions that Ivy be allowed to wear slacks or shorts and march with the males was turned down.

Gilbert said the dress code was decided by a student graduation committee and the school backs the students' in their decision.

He said there is a difference between a voluntary student exercise like a graduation ceremony, "which is a privilege in Hawaii not a right," and a required exercise.

He said Principal Yamada and Deputy Attorney General Russell Suzuki would be the ones to decide the matter.

"We're waiting to hear from the attorney general," he said.

Greg Knudsen, Department of Education spokesman, said this is the first incident he knows of that a graduation dress code has been challenged. He said Schools Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto is aware of the matter but has not intervened.

"Anytime there's any kind of problem, we're always hopeful it can be resolved closest to the source of the problem, in this case at the school level," he said.

Knudsen agreed with Gilbert that the graduation ceremony is a privilege and not a right and it can have certain requirements.

White countered: "It doesn't matter if it's a privilege or if it's a right. The key issue is that this is the government requiring girls to wear dresses if they want to walk with the graduating class and that's outrageous, and it's so surprising to me that they would defend this policy. This is what you would have expected in the Deep South, where I grew up, in the 1950s -- not in 2002 in a supposedly progressive state."

"Other schools also have policies such as this," White said. "This is to put all schools on notice that they cannot adopt dress codes along gender lines."