Clovis Unified board keeps dress code unchanged despite legal threat

Clovis Unified trustees voted on Wednesday against recommendations to make the district’s decades-old dress code more gender equal, despite concerns that the current policy breaks state law.

In a 4-3 vote, the board voted against proposed changes that would have allowed boys to wear long hair and earrings. The proposal also would’ve removed language that skirts and dresses are only for girls.

The vote was received well by dozens of parents who showed up in support of the current, strict policy ‑ some of whom offered to help the school board pay expected legal costs as a result of the vote to uphold it.

But the American Civil Liberties Union says the dress code violates California education code, which includes gender expression as a protected class.

“When schools require a certain hair length only for boys, or say that girls can wear earrings but boys cannot wear earrings, they discriminate and prevent students from learning in an inclusive school climate,” said Abre’ Conner, attorney for the ACLU of Northern California.

Clovis parent Melissa Fairless spoke in favor of the strict dress code, saying trustees were being pressured by the ACLU. She also spoke out against the organization’s fight for transgender bathrooms in schools.

“Let’s get real, what we’re doing is looking at a lawsuit if you don’t vote for this. I’m sick and tired of the ACLU. Because of them, I can have a male come into my daughter’s bathroom,” she said. “I’m so tired of my rights and my conservative values being trampled on because of this gender equality. Stand up for what Clovis believes in and say we are going to take this to court and we are going to fight this.”

Trustees Sandra Bengel, Ginny Hovsepian, Richard Lake and Betsy Sandoval voted against making changes, saying the dress code is directly tied to the district’s high test scores and student achievement.

“This community is being assaulted from afar with what I believe is an overreaching law regarding gender equity. I believe it’s un-American to run from a fight for a good cause,” Hovsepian said. “Just because it’s a law doesn’t mean we need to put up with it … If we don’t put up a stand at this point then it’s just one domino after another.”

School board president Chris Casado, who voted for the proposed changes, said the board’s vote was wrong – but that he agrees with their opinions about it.

“I think we have potentially left for ourselves some unfriendly future issues that might develop and I think that our obligation is protecting this district from unnecessary litigation and to follow the law,” he said. “If you’re talking about what you believe in your heart and your mind, I agree with everybody up there that voted ‘no’ 100 percent. But that’s not what we were elected to do.”

Isabel Machado, who recently moved to the area, was the only person to speak in support of changes to the dress code. The board had to quiet the audience because there was so much outcry while Machado spoke.

“Honestly, I’m just shocked,” she said. “I heard when I moved out here that this was ‘Clovis’ and I sometimes still hear that I live in ‘Clovis,’ but guess what Clovis? It’s 2016.”

Before voting no, Lake said he took issue with any concerns about gender equality.

“This is totally centered around something called gender equity. It makes absolutely no sense …  that has nothing to do with what we’re trying to accomplish,” he said. “We shouldn’t be changing things. A woman’s a woman and a man’s a man and there’s a difference.”

This story was originally published January 27, 2016 at 9:46 PM with the headline "Clovis Unified board keeps dress code unchanged despite legal threat."