In2-MeC

Prague, Czech Republic
30 November 2004

After I read this astonishing news story, I was so stunned I could only conclude that it speaks for itself. The devotee-parents that I know who have children in ISKCON schools will thank their lucky stars after reading this.

Principals freaked out by students' dance, dress

By Dahleen Glanton Tribune national correspondent

Gaoda McFadden still wonders what all the fuss is about. The way the 16-year-old sees it, the principal overreacted by ending his school's homecoming party early because kids were dancing, well, the way kids dance.

Like many of his friends at Stephenson High School, McFadden sees nothing wrong with bumping and grinding on the dance floor or being sandwiched between two girls with their hips gyrating against him. After all, he said, you can turn on MTV or Black Entertainment Television and see it all day.

"It wasn't at all like what they tried to say. It was juicy," said McFadden, a junior who was present last month when Principal Morcease Beasley abruptly ended the party because of what he called "disgraceful dancing." In teenager talk, "juicy" means exciting.

In an era when sexy music videos and scantily clad pop stars set the standard for many young people, parents and educators across the country are waging what appears to be an uphill battle over values.

Discord over lewd dancing and dress is hardly new, but the goalposts for indecency have shifted radically in recent times. School officials find themselves trying to ban students from sporting gold teeth like rappers and from "freaking," or dancing in ways that explicitly imitate sex. It is a moral challenge in suburban and rural areas where values, as suggested by the 2004 presidential election, have become one of the top issues among millions of Americans.

While each generation pushes the limits, some parents feel that pop culture, fueled by the Internet, Hollywood and cable television, has prodded teenagers further across the line of decency than ever imagined in the 1950s when some wanted to ban Elvis Presley.

These days, some schools are banning certain kinds of dance moves--or canceling dances altogether. Educators are setting strict dress codes as early as elementary school, forbidding girls from wearing skin-bearing outfits such as low-rider jeans, thong underwear and midriff tops and banning attire for boys such as oversized T-shirts and pants that sag, often exposing their backside.

Sandra McGary-Ervin, principal of Sandtown Middle School in Atlanta, said such hip-hop attire, for example, is not only distracting to learning but is potentially dangerous.

"If we were in a crisis and the children had to get out of the building, they couldn't get out quick enough because their pants would trip them up," McGary-Ervin said.

About half of all teenagers between 15 and 19 are sexually active, according to a survey by the National Centers for Disease Control, though statistics show a decline in teenage pregnancy in recent years. Still, parents and educators are alarmed by the sexual content in pop culture and its influence on young people.

Fifties parallels

Some, however, say modern critics of teen dancing and attire are the equivalent of those in the 1950s who wanted to stop Elvis from shaking his hips.

Charles Haynes disagrees. The senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, an Arlington, Va.-based center that works to protect 1st Amendment freedoms, said:

"This is a lot different than the '50s. There are now dances with a lot of body contact in ways that imitate sexual practice. Some schools are teaching abstinence, and if they are trying to send the message that sexual activity is something to be taken seriously and that there are emotional and medical implications for young people who engage in it, then they must do something."

Some schools are teaching courses in "character education," Haynes added, and to teach teenagers "about moral issues and character issues in a very powerful way. It is a movement in education that is spreading across the country."

Like many principals, McGary-Ervin has a dress code at her school. Each morning, she stands at the school's entrance and monitors what the students are wearing: If boys don't have a belt on, she gives them one. If a girl's skirt doesn't reach her fingertips when she extends her arms down her legs, she has to go home and change. Continual violations lead to more serious consequences, including expulsion.

Several districts have banned "Britney Spears-like" clothing and require students to cover their stomachs and backs and not show their underwear. Others, like Chicago, have no districtwide dress code, but allow individual schools to set standards. Chicago Public Schools spokesman Mike Vaughn said there is a broad range, from schools that require uniforms to those that have no rules.

Some officials have tried more drastic measures. A Louisiana legislator unsuccessfully this year tried to get a bill passed as part of the state's obscenity law that would have made it illegal for anyone, not just young people, to wear below-the-waist pants.

School officials in Merrillville, Ind., near Chicago banned pink clothing and accessories for middle and high school students, fearing that gangs had adopted the color. Though there was no evidence of gang activity in the district, officials said they had noticed many students wearing pink, so they issued the ban as a precaution.

In Augusta, Ga., high school students cannot wear large belts, sagging pants or removable gold or platinum bridges that cover their front teeth--a style popular with rappers.

"We have things such as gangs that spill over into the school, so we have to deal with it," said Richmond County Schools spokeswoman Mechelle Jordan. Getting youngsters to follow rules prepares them for the workforce, too, she added.

One of the biggest challenges school officials have dealt with in recent years is the sexually explicit dancing known as "freaking," where groups of teens pack together on the floor and simulate sexual moves. Problems have surfaced in numerous cities, including Anchorage, Ft. Wayne, Ind., Palo Alto, Calif., and Norristown, Pa.

The school district in Oceanside, Calif., near San Diego, won't allow songs that have obscene or sexually demeaning lyrics to be played at school functions.

Some principals have eliminated school dances. In some schools, chaperones walk around with flashlights to make sure the dancing does not go too far. Still, when the dance has ended and the lights come on, some principals say, they have found condoms and underwear on the floor.

A committee of parents, teachers and students at Stephenson High School in Stone Mountain, an affluent town on the outskirts of Atlanta, are devising a policy on the kind of dances that can be done and music that can be played at school events. The group, which also will define what students can wear to prom or homecoming dances, was formed after principal Beasley said he had tried for three years to get students to conform.

"The student dancing is immoral and reflective of much that is wrong within our society and the base values that are often communicated through our media and that significantly contribute to many of our society's problems," Beasley, who also is a minister, said in an e-mail to parents.

Murray Forman, a professor of communication studies at Northeastern University in Boston, said young people are affected because they are exposed to sexual images continually through the media. He said it is wrong to blame hip-hop music, as some do, for problems that should be addressed at home.

"Hip-hop is part of a media matrix. . . . It is part of the culture and young people are very attentive to it," said Forman, who co-edited a collection of hip-hop articles, titled "That's the Joint! The Hip Hop Studies Reader." He said young people are doing more than "consuming the images," adding: "They are not just replicating what they see in the media, they are making it and reinterpreting it wherever they live."

Students fight back

Though the Supreme Court has sided with schools over issues of dress codes involving children under 18, some students are protesting.

In Purcellville, Va., students at Loudoun Valley High School circulated a petition claiming that the board's decision to ban dancing violated their 1st Amendment right of free speech. In some cities, students have held alternative parties to protest a dance ban at their high schools.

But the homecoming dance was the first party Zecheiah Martin, 16, attended at Stephenson, and she was surprised at what she saw.

"We were around adults and we should carry ourselves better," said Martin, a 10th-grader. "I didn't know people danced like that at homecoming. It looked like people were having sex."

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