I am a pretty opinionated person and when I know something is unfair or not right I will not back down without a fight. Today has been the fifth day in a row at school that it was nice out. The snow is almost completely melted, the windows are finally remaining open in classrooms, and the heavy winter coats are slowly disappearing from the hallway scene. It is the start of spring, and with the warmer weather on the horizon guys are wearing their usual shorts, and girls are beginning to wear skirts, the typical spring apparel for teens at school.

However, when it comes to warm weather the LT dress code seems to make its way back into security guards’ and teachers’ minds. I respect the fact that the school wants to keep things classy, and I follow almost all LT rules, but this is the one rule I cannot help but break due to the length of my legs. The dress code is an unfair system where the short legged girls win and the tall girls become losers.

I know everyone here has complained about the dress code before whether it is about wearing athlete shorts or showing some shoulder or hearing me rant about it before. This time, however, I would like to show my opinion with statistics instead of my reasoning being “because I’m tall”. When I heard that I could be dress coded if I wore something like the dress I wore last week again I was a bit angry. I have only had one encounter with the issue of dress length before and it was at the beginning of this school year. In that case I only got a warning to not wear that dress again, and I haven’t worn it to school any other time.

Recently, I have noticed that my legs seem a little longer than they did last fall. During the winter I ordered a bunch of new dresses anxiously anticipating to wear in spring, especially during May for “dress month”. This is something I do where I wear a different dress every day of May and do not repeat. Yes, I own a lot of dresses, it is mostly due to the fact I hate pants and only wear leggings during the winter, but that is not the point. Most of these dresses are not long enough under LT’s rules since they are almost the same length as the one I wore last week. The dress I wore yesterday was 30 inches, which is the exact same length as my LT cheer skirt, except no one said anything because I had the words “LT” written across my chest. Now that these are my own clothes I am at risk of being dress coded? That is not right.

I did the math and my legs are 43 inches long: that is 61% of my 71 inch body. Now I also measured from my shoulder to the spot on my leg that would be one LT ID card above my knee, and it was 37 inches. This may not mean anything to you until you realize that the average dress length between all of the most popular stores for teenagers to shop at is between 30-34 inches (the most popular answer being 31). That means I can never wear a dress that is in my closet that meets this requirement. If I did have a dress that was 34 inches long, I would still be three inches away from meeting this requirement. Three inches may not seem like a lot, but it is when we are talking dress length. I would also like to state that I do try to make my dresses longer. I buy a size or two up to make the dress a bit longer, but in the long run it still does not help.

There are no stores that I can go to that are made for tall girls. There are plenty of outlets in retail stores that carry petite sizes, but the only thing in long sizes are usually jeans. I decided to not just let my numbers to speak for themselves, but I measured my friends to help prove my point. I measured my friend who seems to be around the average height of an LT girl at around 5’6”/5’7”. Her legs are 38 inches long, her shoulder to an LT ID card above her knee is 30 inches. I decided why stop there? I wanted to get measurements from someone who is towards the shorter side, so at 5’2” my shorter friend has legs that are 36 inches long and the length of her shoulder to an LT ID card above her knee was 31 inches.

But I did not want to exclude a girl that is taller than me, so I measured my friend who is basically 6 feet tall and her legs are 44 inches long. The length from her shoulder to an LT ID card above her knee was 37 inches. This clearly proving that the two shorter girls would be in the clear of the LT dress code for a normal dress that is around 30-34 inches. However, my tall friend and I would be making our way down to the AP office.

Do you see how unfair that is? I understand “life isn’t fair”, but when LT talks about trying to make a safe and fair learning environment for everyone, this violates that point. The tall girls in this scenario who just want to wear a nice dress end up wearing a nice rental PE uniform.

I also would like to point out that every time I sit with a dress my dress goes beyond my knees and I tuck it in on the sides to be a “classy and ladylike” girl. Since we are sitting in desks for 379 minutes of the school day so around 87% of it I am sitting in a “classy and ladylike” manner where my dress goes beyond my knees. Around the only time people can notice that my dress may not live up to what LT wants is when I am walking to a class or turning in a paper. Otherwise I am not doing a lot of standing or showing off how short my dress is.

I understand that I should just follow the rules, but I feel the need to point how unfair the system is. Most security guards do not say anything to me about my choice in dress due to my height, but with the fact that I could be dress coded by a teacher makes me just want to point the facts out. I think to make a more fair system, the rules of the LT dress code should be based on someone’s height in a reasonable fashion. There should be an exception for taller people, because in the end of the day why shouldn’t I be allowed to wear the same dress as the girl sitting next to me?