Despite assurances from authorities that the Bear River dress code is fair and properly enforced, a perceived crackdown on the rules has left students frustrated.

Many Bruins said that they have been pulled out of class or have seen their friends pulled out of class to be dress coded recently, most often by Campus Supervisor Ralph Lewis. They say that the authorities have been much stricter with their enforcement of the dress code in the last couple of months than they usually are. However, the authorities themselves say that they disagree, and that they have not increased their efforts towards calling out students.

“I’m not gonna go into the classrooms and check under every desk to make sure your pants are long enough,” said Mr. Lewis. “There have been no harsh crackdowns on dress code this year.”

Chana Ferguson, a junior, said that she thinks that the number of people dress coded is excessive.

“I feel like there’s too many kids who get dress coded on a regular basis to count,” she said. “Dress codes are trash. I have been to three high schools and never once have I seen a boy get dress coded.”

Mr. Lewis said that he disagreed about the dress coding being unfair.

“It’s really hard to say how many kids we get on a daily basis, it’s not something that I really count,” he said. “… On my end, even though I enforce many female students, I enforce the boys a lot that people really don’t see, like in P.E. and weights and things like that.”

Regardless, students such as Senior Hunter Lindley said that some dress code rules that tend to apply to only girls are called out for having been broken more frequently than others. 

“Some of the most common dress code infractions are probably girls getting called out for leggings, or shorts that are too short,” he said.

Ferguson said something similar.

“I think that short shorts are the most common dress code infraction,” she said.

Sophomore Aries Daniels said that he doesn’t think that the dress code should be a problem at all.

“I think that the dress code is kind of pointless,” Daniels said. “It doesn’t really matter how many times you tell someone not to do something, if they still want to do it then they will. The dress code is a silly thing to worry about.”

Mr. Lewis ended by saying that he can’t see everything, being only one person with an entire school to watch.

“We don’t just necessarily let some people slide, and some don’t,” he said. “I just may not have seen you or paid attention to you.”

— Sonora Slater contributed to this report.