Josie Reason, a Louisiana teenager, was denied admission at prom because the dress she was wearing was deemed too immodest.

While she’s a student at Central High School (which is public), she was attending the dance at her boyfriend’s Christian school, Central Private. They told her she couldn’t enter the dance because the sides of her dress included two nude-colored mesh coverings and that violated their guidelines.

Josie was given the options of going to Walmart to get a belt to cover up the waistline cutouts or wearing her date Christian’s jacket for the entire prom. Josie’s mother told WAFB that she called the school’s office over a month before the problem to seek clarification on the cutouts on Josie’s dress. She says she was told by someone at the school over the phone that the dress was appropriate because it had mesh. On prom night, when Josie’s mother spoke to a teacher on the phone, she was told she had initially spoken to the wrong person and that the school’s office wasn’t in charge of the prom.

Funny, Josie’s dress sounds a lot like the one my mother wore for my wedding. But God forbid anyone see flesh-colored mesh and mistake it for real skin.

A more compassionate response would have been to acknowledge the miscommunication and let the couple attend the dance. Instead, they were blocked from entering — and the school wouldn’t even say if they’d give the couple a refund on tickets.

The odd thing about these modesty codes is that they claim to be in place to keep students from being distracted and unable to focus. Yet in many (most?) cases, they end up drawing more attention to the immodest student in question than if she had just been left alone.

Would the students have even noticed that part of her dress if the school hadn’t made such a big deal about it? My prom was over a decade ago, but I remember being far more concerned about how I looked than what my peers were wearing. I bet it was the same for most of the students at this dance.

The good news is that the couple will be attending her public school’s prom this weekend. I doubt they’ll create much controversy over there.

(Screenshot via WAFB. Thanks to Jaynee for the link)

