Pre-Graduation Preoccupation

Below is a column that I wrote for The Courier-Tribune of Asheboro, North Carolina. It will run on the opinions page on Wednesday, June 3rd.

Commencement is a ceremony steeped in tradition. Graduates enter and exit to the march commonly known as “Pomp and Circumstance” that became de rigueur shortly after Yale University included it in the graduation proceedings of 1905. Graduates wear academic regalia that dates back to standards set by ancient universities. Graduates receive diplomas of a style reminiscent of days when they were hand-scribed on thinly stretched animal skin. Academic institutions go to great lengths to ensure that the integrity of commencement is not marred by any disruptive deviations from precedent. As a senior graduating with the Gray Stone Day School class of 2009, I learned to what extent some individuals wish to uphold precedent.
A less famed, but omnipresent, aspect of graduation convention is the dress code for attire worn beneath academicals. Most institutions require formal attire and many institutions issue gender-specific guidelines. According to standard procedure, men are expected to wear slacks and women are expected to wear skirts or dresses with hem lines not below that of the graduation robe. I suspect that not many people are aware of this distinction; I certainly was not until several weeks ago.
While it may seem a petty detail, consider the deeper implications of imposing such restrictions on females: in the history of social oppression, skirts and dresses are the compulsory garb of disenfranchised women; in terms of functionality, the only benefit of such a requirement is displaying a woman’s bare legs for the viewing pleasure of all attendees; and, in regards to logical progression, the next level of dress specifications would not unreasonably be to require that all Arabs wear red cords.
The issue of a female’s right to wear slacks when an occasion calls for formal attire has been a source of debate at Gray Stone for several years. When I first began attending the charter school in 2005, females were disallowed from wearing slacks to school dances. Along with a fellow sophomore, I approached the school administration and successfully saw the policy altered to allow students equal opportunity of attire. The conflict reemerged in the late summer of last year when I chose to wear a tuxedo rather than the traditional feminine drape in my senior portrait. Before I was able to leave, I was obliged to have my portrait taken in a drape for inclusion in the yearbook. Several meetings between my parents and Gray Stone’s chief administrative officer, Mrs. Helen Nance, and a school board meeting later, it was firmly decided that the picture of me in the tuxedo would not permitted in the annual. Disinclined to acquiesce to what I perceive as a groundless restriction, I opted to have no picture at all rather than the portrait in which I am wearing a drape (and, appropriately, looking miserable).
When I approached Mrs. Nance about allowing my female peers to wear pants to graduation, if such is their preference, she cited the need for conformity as an important factor in why we would not be able to do so. For what purpose, I ask? If men and women are as equal in society as we are led to believe, then why must the genders be distinguished by such base means as attire? If education is truly meant to prepare pupils for the future, then why would the ceremony celebrating the culmination of twelve years of diligent study adhere to such antiquated expectations?
Because I have faith in my peers, I put these questions to the student body. For three days I spent mornings, afternoons, lunch periods, and every other moment of spare time circulating a petition stating that female graduates should be permitted to wear formal slacks beneath their graduation robes. Over the course of those three days, I approached approximately ninety percent of Gray Stone’s students; over the course of those three days, I gathered the signatures of nearly eighty-five percent of the student body. Many of my classmates unaware that the policy even existed.
On May 11, my family and I drove to the campus of Pfeiffer University, where Gray Stone is located, to attend the monthly meeting of the school’s board of directors. My father and I addressed the board in support of allowing female graduates the option of wearing slacks and presented the petition with the echoing voices of my classmates. Though they did not make a decision while we were present, I learned the following morning that the board voted to allow women the right to wear pants this year while deferring the establishment of an official policy until a later meeting.
Over the course of this conflict, many well-meaning individuals encouraged me to “go with the flow;” they advised me wear a skirt and leave the battle for someone else. Their intentions were good, but good intentions do not guarantee sound conclusions. One cannot go through life perceiving but ignoring injustices and expect for the world to become any more just. One cannot assume that someone else who cares will come along, or even that anyone else will come along at all.
For me, there was no thrill in challenging the status quo. There was no desire to undermine the formality of graduation. There was not even pleasure in “stickin’ it to the man.” I prefer to wear slacks when an occasion calls for formal attire because I feel that such garb appears more professional; that I or any other woman would be denied that option simply because of gender is well worth confronting simply on the basis of equal opportunity. Hopefully, the board of directors will recognize this and solidify their equalization of the graduation dress code in official school policy.
With a nod to that future, I will march into graduation on June 5th to the drone of “Pomp and Circumstance.” I will don robes in the tradition of generations of scholars before me. I will receive a diploma adorned with commendations and calligraphy. I will observe all the formalities of commencement, but I will do so in pants.