The '1999 Short Skirts Debacle'
In March 1999, the school made the headlines when 41 girls were either sent home, made to put on baggy trousers or isolated from lessons for wearing excessively short skirts as part of a local crackdown on sexily dressed school pupils. 21 female pupils aged from 11 to 16 were suspended and the rest segregated away from the other pupils. The school's then head-teacher, Mrs Barbara O'Connor, was supported by most people connected to the school when she made this decision. The girls were sent home or removed from lessons for wearing short skirts which were more than 2 inches (51 mm) above the knee. This action was taken after several complaints from various sources, including some male pupils and members of the local community, who had expressed their concern about the rude and sexy way some of the girls were dressing. It became known locacaly as the '1999 Short skirts debacle'. A similar, but less spectacular situation occered soon after due to a purge of jeans and tight trousers.
| School uniform dress code offence. | The total number of pupils involved. | Those who finally did not change and got expelled. | Those suspended until could return in longer skirts. | Those isolated that day and returned in longer skirts. | Those isolated that day and returned in baggy trousers. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mini-skirts | 40 | 1 | 21 | 20 | 0 | |
| Tight skirts | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| Tight trousers | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| Kulottes | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | |
| Jeans | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
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Famous quotes containing the words short and/or skirts:
“It is while we are young that the habit of industry is formed. If not then, it never is afterwards. The fortune of our lives therefore depends on employing well the short period of our youth.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“The emancipation of today displays itself mainly in cigarettes and shorts. There is even a reaction from the ideal of an intellectual and emancipated womanhood, for which the pioneers toiled and suffered, to be seen in painted lips and nails, and the return of trailing skirts and other absurdities of dress which betoken the slave-woman’s intelligent companionship.”
—Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960)