Antelope Valley District to Reconsider Dress Code : Education: Trustees back off on a ban of gang-related attire after being warned that it would be vulnerable to legal challenges.

In a move that dismayed teachers but pleased some students, the board of the Antelope Valley Union High School District has balked at adopting a tough new student dress code that would ban gang-related attire.

The decision by the district’s board of trustees came after its attorney warned that the draft policy is vulnerable to constitutional challenges. The attorney also urged the district to better document its gang problems before passing a revised version.

“I think we can have some type of dress code. But we can’t have people making up what is gang attire as we go along,” said board President Larry Rucker, one of those voicing caution. He said the policy will be considered again at the board’s next meeting, Dec. 20.

The proposed policy had angered some students in the six-campus district, mainly because one of its provisions would prohibit all hats, except those related to students’ schools. Several told the board that they simply like wearing sports-oriented baseball caps or other headgear.

“It discriminates against those of us who have nothing to do with gangs. It lets the minority dictate what the majority wears,” complained Loren Long, a 17-year-old senior at Quartz Hill High School who said he often wears a crimson University of Oklahoma cap.

However, Beverley Louw, a school principal who led the faculty and parent committee that drafted the dress code, said students in the district have been attacked on campus just because of wearing hats. And Louw said members of her group are upset about the board’s delay.

“There’s a cry from the community we need to take stands on things, and here we are standing on the fence,” said Louw, principal of Desert Winds High School, the district’s continuation school. Her campus on its own last spring instituted a strict ban on gang attire.

The policy at Desert Winds came after several gang incidents there, including one case in which youths with high-power rifles were spotted near the campus, Louw said.

This fall, district teachers began demanding a districtwide ban on gang attire.

At Desert Winds, Louw said the student dress policy outlaws all types of hats, solid blue or red clothing because of the association of those colors with gangs, bandannas and even British Knight tennis shoes, which are worn by gang members who say the BK logo stands for “Blood Killers.”

School districts in Southern California have increasingly turned to anti-gang dress codes in recent years in attempts to combat their growing gang problems. The idea has been under consideration in the Antelope Valley, which also has experienced worsening gang violence, for many months.

In addition to hats, the district’s proposed policy would outlaw clothing and other items, including gloves, bandannas, shoestrings, wristbands and jewelry “related to a group or gang, which may provoke others to acts of violence or to be intimidated by fear of violence.”

The proposal also would ban clothing or jewelry “which depicts or suggests sexually related or obscene gestures, pictures or wording, or which promotes violence, the use/abuse of drugs, tobacco or alcohol.” Students violating the policy after a first warning could be suspended or expelled.

In a nine-page memo delivered just before Wednesday night’s board meeting, district counsel Urrea Jones Jr. said he believes that the district may lawfully regulate the dress of its nearly 10,000 students. He also submitted a revised policy draft that he said cured his legal concerns.

But before taking action, Jones said, the district first needs to demonstrate that gang-type attire creates “a clear and present danger” of violence or disruption. He urged the board to publicly detail the extent of its campus gang problems and allow him to review them.

The Los Angeles school district has no broad anti-gang dress code, although many individual schools have imposed restrictions, officials said.

A student who sued over one school’s policy last year left school and dropped his case, leaving the legal issues unresolved by the courts.