Cobb School Uniform Policy Under Fire: ICYMI

Every Cobb County school that requires students to wear uniforms has a majority Hispanic or black population.

The Cobb County Board of Education decided Wednesday not to review the district’s policy on school uniforms despite the cries of critics who believe the policy is unfair to minority students, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Punishments for violating the uniform regulations can land students in in-school suspension, causing them to miss out on valuable instruction time.

One parent unhappy with the board’s decision told the AJC that she planned to take up the issue with the federal government by complaining to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

Valerie Testman has taken up the fight against the county’s policy after her daughter, a student at Tapp Middle School, was threatened with suspension for wearing a shirt that didn’t adhere to the code.

In January 2014, the Department of Education and the Department of Justice said that punishments meted out to Hispanic and black students were harsher than those given to white students who had committed the same offenses.

Then-Attorney General Eric Holder called for the end of such draconian policies and punishments, saying “alarming numbers of young people are suspended, expelled, or even arrested for relatively minor transgressions like school uniform violations, schoolyard fights, or showing ‘disrespect’ by laughing in class” during a Jan. 8, 2014 speech in Baltimore.