An intervention to enforce the Père Marquette school’s dress code sparked a demonstration outside the secondary school last Friday. During the review, staff put their hands on the students’ legs – mostly girls – to measure the length of the shorts.
Posted at 5:00 am
Ariane Krol The press
“They took four fingers off her hand and put them on our knees or above the knee to see if our shorts were okay. I found it really inappropriate,” a fifth-grade student, Frédérique Vignon, said in a telephone interview with La Presse on Monday.
The school’s dress code dictates that skirts and Bermuda shorts must be long enough so that the uncovered portion above the knee does not exceed the width of a palm placed horizontally. It was the first time, however, that staff had applied the order so literally.
Students were even sent home to change.
The operation aroused all the more outrage as girls seemed to be attacked more systematically.
“There was a line of 35 to 40 girls waiting to be checked through, but in all that line I didn’t see a single guy! ‘ Alexis Audette, also in fifth-grade secondary school, told us. Although his shorts were rated “slightly short,” he was not subjected to a manual measurement.
“Out of 30 girls there was maybe a guy, that was really confronting,” Frédérique also noted during her visit.
Raising your hand without getting the person’s consent is already considered harassment, and besides, it’s only the girls who let it do it…
Alexis Audette, high school student
The operation was carried out by teachers and a deputy director of the establishment, the director of the school, Éric Benoît, confirmed to us. He wasn’t there himself, but the day before he had called for all students to respect the code.
PHOTO HUGO-SEBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Éric Benoît, director of the Père-Marquette school
“I think they tried to get their hands on it to show it, but we don’t want to touch the students,” he said Monday. “We came back and said, ‘No, no, no, we’re not doing this as an intervention!’ »
Demonstration in front of the school
Management estimates that a hundred students demonstrated in front of the school on Friday afternoon. Some held placards that read, “Stop sexualizing our bodies,” “Our thighs don’t deserve to be sexualized,” and “I go to a school where the length of my shorts is more important than my education.”
The protest was short-lived, however, as management announced through the student council that the dress code would be relaxed temporarily.
“Short athletic shorts” (jogging, volleyball, basketball, padded cycling shorts) are still not allowed, but “short leggings (short shorts without padding) and black denim shorts” are currently allowed, confirms the letter sent to parents at the end of the day on Friday.
Père-Marquette found himself in this situation after her air conditioning went out during last week’s heatwave. The parents had to rush out the summer clothes as the children had grown since last year, the principal admitted.
The dress code will be discussed at the next school board on June 6th. “I hope that we can come to a solution in the form of an amendment,” said Mr Benoît.
Outcry in Ontario
Another demonstration against the application of the dress code took place outside an Ontario secondary school last Friday, with far more resounding consequences.
Nearly 400 students at Béatrice-Desloges Catholic High School in Ottawa’s Orleans sector demonstrated against an operation performed the previous day to check the length of clothing worn in class.
Young people, particularly girls, have reportedly been forced by staff to bend over to show the length of their shorts and skirts in public, in classrooms and in the hallways, according to reports circulated Thursday and Friday.
The operation sparked strong reactions on social media, including from candidates running in the provincial elections.
The administration of the Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est (CECCE) finally apologized in a press release on Saturday, saying it “sincerely regrets this outcome” and promising to “ensure that such a situation does not occur again.” more “.
CECCE acknowledged that students, “mostly girls,” had to go out into the corridor and that some “were required to bend their leg back at the knee,” but wrote that “no student was asked to lean.
The strategy used was “unacceptable,” the council admitted, adding that “many students felt humiliated and humiliated.”
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“The skirt or Bermuda shorts must be a length of a horizontal palm above the knee. »
Excerpt from the dress code of the Père-Marquette school