In the past few years, schools across the country and even places such as Disneyland, have enforced stricter dress code policies. This includes tightening up on holes in jeans and the shortness of skirts, but recently it seems the schools are over-enforcing these rules on young women.

This practice is unfair, and the policies should be either enforced for both men and women equally or they should not be as restrictive.

There is no denying that some students take advantage of loose policies, but the actions of their classmates shouldn’t affect every female student. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 55.9% of high schools have reported that they enforced strict dress code policies. This number is too high for some kids who are just trying to get an education. Punishment for students who are basically wearing nothing is understandable, but their punishment should be handled individually.

Shoulder coverings are in almost every dress code; students shouldn’t have to deal with this. Shoulders aren’t as appealing as faculty make them out to be. According to New York Times, in 2014, a group of Jersey high schools created “#iammorethanadistraction” to push back against unfair dress codes. There shouldn’t be restrictions for something that doesn’t cause a distraction.

Finally, it would be harder to break the dress code if the policy was looser. The dress code can be easily broken, and when this happens, students are sent to the office or even to ISS. Whatever a student wears, especially when it’s not inappropriate, shouldn’t be removed from class and their education disrupted.

The easiest and most logical way to solve these problems would be to make the dress codes less strict and harder to break. This issue needs to be changed or at least addressed to some degree everywhere dress codes are enforced.