VANCOUVER—High school students at Princeton Secondary School in Princeton, B.C., decided to stage a protest after several girls got into trouble for showing their bra straps — by showing up to school braless.

The protest came after multiple girls at the school had been “dress coded,” or been told by teachers to cover up for wearing outfits that showed their bra straps. Some of the students began chatting online and decided to take action in the form of peaceful protest.

“We thought, what’s more distracting, a bra strap or no bra whatsoever?” said Megan Mintzler, a grade 12 student who participated in the protest.

According to several students at the school, almost 30 students ranging from grades 9 to 12 arrived to school on Thursday braless, some holding signs that said “Yes, I have breasts,” and “My body is not a distraction.”

“It was really freeing and empowering,” Mintzler said. “We were just walking around the school like a group and it felt empowering for all of us to band together like that, it was really cool.”

The students said their school’s lack of a consistent dress code policy was part of the problem because it meant that individual teachers had the power to reprimand students on the basis of what they believed was inappropriate.

“We’re were all pretty frustrated about it,” said Ashlin White, another grade 12 student at the school. “It's unfair that we were told our bra straps were a distraction.”

It came to a head a couple of weeks ago when a few girls were “dress coded” for showing bra straps, in particular one girl in another grade who Mintzler said was wearing a very modest outfit.

“She was really excited about wearing this new dress she had got, it was like a summer dress, a high neck kind of style. You could barely see any part of her bra,” Mintzler said.

Mintzler had been “dress coded” herself a couple of years ago when she was told by a different teacher that her jean shorts were too revealing. She said getting called out for your clothes at school can be a humiliating experience for students.

“It’s honestly just kind of embarrassing,” she said. “You have an outfit on, and you get to school and you feel good, you look good … and then a teacher comes up to you and they say you need to stop that.”

The girls are hoping their protest will prompt the school to institute an official dress code policy. After the protest, they got together to write a dress code of their own, which included guidelines for girls and boys — making sure to leave out any mention of bra straps.

“We made it so bra straps are excluded and were not going to be a problem,” White said. The students then handed their version of the dress code to the school administration for review.

Jameel Aziz, assistant superintendent of school district 58 that oversees Princeton Secondary, said while he will be taking the students’ concerns into account, there is no plan to establish an official district-wide dress code policy outside of a general understanding of what is “appropriate dress.”

“Restrictive dress codes have not proven to be effective,” Aziz said. “Historically there were situations where you are literally measuring hemlines, which impede the flow of the educational setting.”

Aziz said he has contacted Princeton Secondary to set up a meeting with the students to hear their concerns. He also said the expectation of what is appropriate should not be more restrictive for girls.

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“Dress codes are more imposing for female students —and I’d say the showing of a bra strap is probably a contextual piece, there are probably some settings where that is appropriate and some settings where that might not be,” he said.

“We would aim to have an expectation that is fair to all genders.”

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