A Dress Code for Success : How to squelch gangs but not kids

Many Southern California school districts, beset by gang activity, are wrestling with dress codes. Although the caps, jackets and colors under scrutiny may represent the latest in up-to-date gang fashion, there’s an old debate at the core of this issue. For generations, students and administrators have fought over appropriate dress--whether the concerns were the plunging sideburns and rising hemlines of the 1960s or the caps with team insignias of today.

Codes being proposed by two districts in Orange County seek to address questions that are fairly typical of the current debate: How much regulation is warranted? How much is too much? Who gets to decide?

There have been varying answers to those questions in school districts from Ventura County to Los Angeles to San Diego.

One of the districts now under review, Orange Unified, has a plan to set broad policy guidelines and allow individual principals flexibility to prohibit specific apparel they consider associated with gang activity. That’s one good approach--especially if the school district backs up its principals and doesn’t run for cover at the first threat of a lawsuit.

Tustin Unified, however, is proposing to issue a blanket ban on specific items commonly regarded as gang-related. There are problems with such a broad prohibition from on high. Principals need some room to operate. And there are some items, such as Los Angeles Kings jackets, that may or may not represent the symbols of a particular area gang. One high school sophomore in Ventura County asked a very good question: “Can’t I like hockey?”

School administrators need some latitude to decide when to blow the whistle on young sports fans. A school-based approach, implemented with sensitivity, is best. A concern has been raised that a district might singled out colors popular with blacks and Latinos for restriction--but let those popular with Anglos go.

Permitting each principal to respond to conditions at a particular campus makes sense. The goal should not be to curb expression but to send an anti-gang message.