Shame on My Alma Mater

Well, my high school made internet news as well as the local news the other day. For Bishop McDevitt High School (in Harrisburg, PA and not Wyncote, PA), prom presumably celebrated Friday 6 May. I say presumably because all the pictures came up immediately that night and the day after, and also because the story broke that night on the local ABC channel (ABC 27).

For those of you who don’t click the link (because I know most of you don’t), the story is that Aniya (“Ah-n-ya”) Wolf, a student at Bishop McDevitt High School and an “out” lesbian, was rejected from her high school prom because she had worn a suit. From the information I can gather, the dress code for the prom was administered 3 months beforehand, but there was no mention that Wolf could or couldn’t wear a suit to the prom.Wolf’s mother tried to appeal, but evidently failed. However, according to one (who shall remain anonymous for his safety) of my friends who went to the same high school, Miss Wolf had gone to the Snowflake (my high school’s winter formal) in a suit with no repercussions and without ejection from the dance.

Still, Miss Wolf arrived at prom in her suit and was promptly told that she would not be admitted, and, according to her, if she refused to leave, the police would escort her off the premise. This didn’t happen, or otherwise, it would be bigger news, and ABC27 had attempted to reach Bishop McDevitt for a statement, to which it responded that it had no comment at the time. However, the following evening, the administration issued the following statement:

Bishop McDevitt High School held its annual prom on Friday, May 6, 2016.

Without question, we love, respect and cherish all of our students.

The dress code for the prom specified girls must wear formal dresses. It also stated that students who failed to follow the dress code would not be admitted.

The full dress code policy was sent to parents about three months ago. A reminder was sent to all students on March 6. On Friday afternoon, when it was brought to the attention of the school administration that a female student was planning to wear a tuxedo, we contacted her mother in hopes we could resolve the situation.

It’s important to note that students who haven’t adhered to the dress code in past years haven’t been admitted to the prom.

Bishop McDevitt will continue to practice acceptance and love for all of our students. They are tremendous young men and women. We simply ask that they follow the rules that we have put into place.

It makes me sad that I’m writing about my school like this. I understood that, being a Catholic institution, that it was going to be conservative by most standards, but it was always kind, always helpful, if a little strict. I suppose, though, as a cis-hetero (if not white) male, it afforded me the advantages not given to my SAGA/LGBT brothers and sisters.

As my friend (whom I mentioned above) said, “For me, much of the rosy memories of high school are suddenly replaced with the memories of lgbt students at McDevitt being ignored when they were bullied, and senior year religion classes in which our teacher stood in front of the class and fed us intellectually dishonest and patently false statistics that not so softly suggested that lesbian and gay individuals, like a few in the actual class, were products of either child abuse, rape, or some other traumatic experience.”

My issue here isn’t that of the enforcement of the rules. It is a private institution independent of the state and therefore doesn’t necessarily have to follow discrimination laws (as horrendously unfortunate as that sounds). It has the right to enforce the rules as it wishes, and take the measures necessary to see them enforced.

My issue is with the rules themselves. The amount of clothing worn or not worn is not indicative of morality. If anything, it has more to do with the level of comfort and confidence an individual has. The type of clothing, again, has no bearing on one’s morality and ethics, and it is a far leap to assume that someone scantily clad has poor morals (for example, the child molesters of our society).

The amount or type of clothing also has no bearing on one’s sexual activity: as many people have pointed out, if women are raped wearing coats and boots, then the problem isn’t with the women, it’s with the men and our collective inability to teach men self-control, and our collective mindset of vilifying women simply for the fact that they are women. The rules based on clothing, especially in western society, are arbitrary. Women can wear clothing that identifies them as women, that accentuates their “assets” as women, but at the same time, we vilify, mock, humiliate, and otherwise destroy her confidence.

At the same time, we vilify, mock, and humiliate when women decide to cover up. We take them down and destroy them for daring to take control of their own bodies and to control what people see and how much. In short, we as a society are raping our young women, and get angry when they try to take back control. Miss Aniya Wolf tried to take back control and was immediately struck down because she was so audacious as to step outside of the boundaries of “the norm”. Add in the fact that she is a so-called “butch” lesbian and oh my God, someone call the cops because she isn’t normal.

There is nothing wrong with a woman in a suit. In fact, many women can pull off suits better than I can. There is also nothing wrong with a man in a dress. Once again, clothing does not dictate morality. It does not dictate one’s level of faith or religiosity. If the argument is based on modesty, then if she were not modest enough, not one girl at that prom (nor any other for that matter) would be “modest” enough.

Modesty is a socially constructed idea designed to keep our young women trapped underfoot, to keep them ignorant and uneducated about sex, to teach them that they are responsible for not only their so-called “purity” but their husbands’, their boyfriends’,their fiances’ as well. In other words, it relieves men of the responsibility for their sexual actions. In cases of rape, not only is the rapist punished, but the victim as well: by the legal system, by society, by friends, family, and peers. All by virtue of having her “virtue” taken.

It puts undue stress and pressure on them when as a society, we should be promoting knowledge and education, not ignorance and abstinence. We need to teach people that they’re human beings with sentience, not objects for pleasure, or outright animals who have no idea of consent. We should be teaching our young men that they have the ability to control their actions, not just that “evolution programmed” them that way. We need to teach them that no means no. We need to teach young women that they have the right to say no. That they are (or should be) empowered to make their own decisions, to dress how they wish, to be as sexually active as they wish, without fear of repercussion or judgment.

As for my school, I wanted to address that final statement: “Bishop McDevitt will continue to practice acceptance and love for all of our students. They are tremendous young men and women. We simply ask that they follow the rules that we have put into place.” By rejecting Miss Wolf’s choice to dress in a tuxedo to go to her prom, you rejected part of who she is. As she and her mother said multiple times, she has dressed like a boy since she was little. She felt comfortable and happy with the clothes she wore. She felt comfortable and happy in a suit she wore to Snowflake. She felt comfortable and happy with the slacks and Oxford shirt and tie, or the polo as required by the school uniform. In what way is this different from either of those examples?

By rejecting her clothing choices, you rejected her choice to express who she is and how she feels. You made her feel like “a mistake”. That isn’t acceptance. That isn’t love. Alma Mater means bounteous or nurturing mother. You were neither bounteous nor nurturing. You were discriminatory. You acted in bigotry. You were outright hateful.