inline : OC HIGH: STUDENT NEWS AND VIEWS : Showers Optional
School officials in Hollidaysburg, Pa., dropped a requirement that high school students shower after gym class, after the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to sue.
The ACLU argued that the requirement violates students’ privacy by forcing them to go naked in front of their classmates.
“This is 100 percent what we were looking for,” said Vic Walczak, executive director of the ACLU’s Greater Pittsburgh chapter.
“If they want to hold seminars about the values of showering, that’s fine. It was the mandatory nature, the intrusiveness that we were concerned about.”
The dispute began when Wendy Hardie circulated a petition over the summer asking the school to lift the physical education department’s requirement. Hardie graduated last spring from Hollidaysburg Area High School.
The school district in central Pennsylvania refused.
Last week, the physical education department and school superintendent agreed in a closed-door meeting of the school board to drop the requirement.
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