(CNN) "Leggings are so naked, so form fitting, so exposing. Could you think of the mothers of sons the next time you go shopping and consider choosing jeans instead?" a Catholic mother wrote.

Maryann White urged female students to stop wearing leggings in a letter to the editor this week in The Observer , a student newspaper serving the University of Notre Dame, Saint Mary's and Holy Cross Colleges. She said young women wearing leggings make it harder for men not to look at their bodies. She said she was ashamed for the women she saw wearing leggings and crop tops at a Catholic Mass she attended.

"You couldn't help but see those blackly naked rear ends. I didn't want to see them — but they were unavoidable. How much more difficult for young guys to ignore them," White wrote.

White also blamed the entertainment and fashion industries for making it hard on Catholic women to teach their sons that women should be respected.

The letter blaming women's clothes for men's sexual behavior inspired students at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana to organize a movement and wear leggings to protest White's views.