Student Sent Home From Prom, Possibly For Not Having A ‘Prom’ Enough Dress

Should prom dresses be subjected to additional levels of dress code scrutiny if they happen to be stylishly slinky instead of decked out with the usual amounts of spangles and tulle? That’s the question one Michigan high school student must be wondering, after being sent home early from her prom because of her cryptically “in violation” prom dress.

Mireya Briceno, a senior at Michigan’s Muskegon High School, still isn’t sure exactly which part of the school dance dress code got her booted from her senior prom, but she suspects it was the rule against “bared midriffs”. In her gorgeous blue and white polka dot dress, her midriff is completely covered; but if she turns left or right, you can see a small area of her scandalous, scandalous sides. And as we all know, sides are the new shoulders in terms of inflaming teenage male passions.

The main issue with the midriff rule being the one Briceno’s dress was at odds with are photographs of dresses other girls were wearing at the prom without being sent home. Take a gander at these, and see if you can come up with an explanation for why they are A-OK and Briceno’s is not, other than “capricious enforcement of the rules”:

Hmmm. The main difference appears to be the amount of beadwork on the dresses, so unless there is an obscure dress code rule against polka dots at prom, there’s no good reason Briceno should have been the only one of these depicted girls who got sent home.

Briceno’s mother is hoping for an apology from school administrators, but so far the principal has refused to look at the photographs comparing her prom dress to those of other students, saying “What would be the purpose of looking in the past?” The purpose of living in the past in this case would be to determine whether mistakes were indeed made in how fairly and equally the dress code was applied, and maybe even to amend that sacred, sacred code for clarity so that cases like this don’t happen again in the future.

Dress code rules should be handled the same regardless of the style of the dress in question–girls like Briceno who want to wear more grown-up or retro styles of dresses aren’t going to cause a sex riot on the dance floor among their scandalized taffeta-and-lace-clad peers. Dresses are just dresses, and sides are just sides, whether you can see them through polka dots or brocade.

(Images: Fox17 West Michigan)