The high school yearbook photo is one of the most important pictures a girl will take during her lifetime aside from her wedding photo. Girls spend hours on end getting ready for the photo, doing their hair, makeup, and outfit. They concentrate so much on this photo because it is part of their legacy.
Most high school girls worry about hiding their acne or having their braces removed before the photo. There is one girl in Colorado who wonders if her school will even publish her 2012 yearbook photo.
The administrators at her school say that the attire she is wearing violates the dress code of the school. The reason for this; the photos show the student posing provocatively. The student, Sidney Spies, is considering taking legal action against the school if it decides not to post the photo because she claims it would be walking all over her freedom of expression.
When Spies grows up she wants to work in modeling. The school rejected the first photo she submitted but gave her a chance to submit a second photo, one that is less racy. The school was upset with the second photo submitted by Spies too.
An attorney advocate for the Student Press Law Center, says that the allegations made by Spies against the school could be valid. According to the Colorado Revised Statutes Section 22-1-120, “students of the public schools shall have the right to exercise freedom of speech and of the press” and “no expression contained in a student publication, whether or not such publication is school-sponsored, shall be subject to prior restraint.”
Goldstein said, “Hopefully, it would come as no surprise that dress codes don’t trump state law.”
Spies is planning on meeting with the school attorney if the administration does not publish her picture in the yearbook. The school administration is not the only entity with the school hoping that her picture is not published. A member of the yearbook staff has also spoken out against the photo.
“We don’t want this picture to make our publication seem unprofessional and inappropriate.” The yearbook has told Spies she can pay $300 to the yearbook so she can publish the picture of her choice in the back of the book, where the advertisements are published.
