Cameron Boland, a 17-year-old at Ft. Myers High School in Florida, was stripped of her newly won National Honor Society (NHS) position for wearing a spaghetti strap dress and baring her shoulders at a school sanctioned event.
In a nutshell, the story goes like this:
The junior earned the NHS position of historian for the entire county via an election, and when she went to give her acceptance speech, after it was announced that she won, Cameron left her denim jacket on her chair. In an interview with Yahoo Parenting, Cameron’s mom Caroline told the site that her daughter took the jacket off because of the sweltering temperatures.
Just one hour after giving her speech, due to complaints from attendees, NHS advisors made the decision to strip Cameron and another female student of their new titles for “dress code violations.” Both were baring their shoulders during their speeches.
Cameron said that no one approached her before the speech to say she was inappropriately dressed. And, in an effort to make it clear she didn’t do this as an act of defiance, rather she just wanted to look nice and it was hot outside, Cameron offered to apologize to the attendees and give her speech again with her jacket on, but officials refused. Now, Cameron, with the help of her mother, is fighting to get the NHS to reinstate her position.
From blacking out the word FEMINIST on a student’s t-shirt, to body-shaming girls for wearing shorts, and the overly excessive and out-of-control policing of girls’ bodies by educators all over the country, we have had enough! As one WYSK reader put it, “It’s nuts and getting nuttier,” and we couldn’t agree more. This epidemic needs to stop and we must help this young woman reclaim the NHS position she clearly worked very hard to earn.
In a show of support for Cameron, we are asking you to take photos of yourselves wearing sleeveless or spaghetti strap tops, and share them on social media using the hashtags #FreeTheShoulder and #ReinstateCameron and including this link bit.ly/1G3ADVP.
It’s time educators start valuing girls’ brains and stop focusing on their bodies. Even Michelle Obama dons a sleeveless top in her official First Lady portrait for goodness sake!
