Students Shut Down Sexist Policy

BROOKLYN, June 1—Hundreds of students — female and male, Black and white — are uniting to build a movement to fight the racist and sexist dress code at Brooklyn Technical High School. The dress code singles out female students for wearing clothes that are “too revealing.” On May 25, to protest this policy, hundreds of students decided to break the dress code.  Some coordinated online using #SkinOutSpeakOut to organize male-female and multiracial twin outfits and highlight the administration’s racist and sexist enforcement of the code. Hundreds of students wore Progressive Labor Party’s anti-sexism buttons to support the struggle.
Sexist, Racist Administration Exposed
When Principal Randy Asher heard about the protest and couldn’t persuade students to shut it down, he called in the superintendent and sent six deans to carefully inspect all 5,500 students on their way in. Unsurprisingly, the administrators cited Black and Latin female students most for violating the dress code. (Only 16 percent of Brooklyn Tech students are Black or Latin, as compared to 69 percent in New York City public schools overall.) As a dean wrote up two female students, a male student passed them several times in short shorts and a tank top that revealed his stomach. The dean did nothing, even though the boy’s clothes showed more skin than the girls’. This scene was caught on video and forced some students to open their eyes. (Later the boy was threatened with suspension for “causing a riot.”)
Sexism and racism are so blatant at the elite Brooklyn Tech that one dean wrote up a Black female student and explained, “If you were an 80-pound Asian girl, this would be a different story.” Dress codes teach youth that different standards prevail for men and women. They sexualize women and make female body parts “taboo.” Within capitalist culture, Black and Latin women are especially sexualized and targeted.
A Principal With No Principles
Principal Asher’s sexist hypocrisy has been exposed by the case of his friend Sean Shaynak, the math and physics teacher the school hired during Asher’s tenure. Several years ago, according to Federal Court documents, Shaynak showed up at a school dance in drag, lifted his skirt at female students, and made “lewd and sexually suggestive gestures.” Asher was present but took no disciplinary action against the teacher, who ran a prestigious aerospace program that brought significant donations to Tech (DNAinfo, 1/12/15).
For Shaynak, this was not an isolated incident. According to the federal suit brought by four former female Tech students, an assistant principal “informed principal Asher of the sexually harassing and inappropriate behavior by Shaynak,” but Asher still took no action (DNAinfo). In August 2014, Shaynak was arrested after sending a female student a Snapchat photograph of his genitals. In January 2015, he was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree kidnapping, disseminating indecent material to a minor, endangering the welfare of a child and official misconduct.
When it comes to protecting his students from the dangers of sleeveless shirts, Principal Asher is a model of tough enforcement. When it comes to protecting them from sexual predators on his own turf, he’s been a lot less interested and effective.
Smash Capitalism to Smash Sexism
Although sexism targets women, they cannot be the only ones to fight it. Men must join in the struggle, too; communists must explain how it is in men’s best interests. Like racism, sexism is created by capitalists to steal more profit from the working class. It allows them to pay women workers less and keep men and women divided, lowering everyone’s wages and blocking effective fightback. In addition, the capitalist bosses save billions of dollars in unpaid childcare and housework by women who are raising the next generation of workers. Whenever we allow sexist ideology to poison the working class, the capitalists win.
The anti-dress code struggle at Brooklyn Tech is an important battleground in our fight against capitalism. The school’s students — male, female, Black, white, Latin, Asian — are uniting.  They are beginning to understand the connections between racism, sexism and the profit system. When students reject these anti-worker ideologies, we move one step closer to smashing capitalism worldwide.
Overpowered Administration
Responds with False Promises
The day after the dress code protest, Black female leaders organized a speakout, much like the one they organized in last winter’s #blackinbrooklyntech campaign (See CHALLENGE 2/10). Students spoke about getting dress-coded and targeted by the administration, and how they were routinely objectified and sexualized. Male students attacked the dress code for targeting women. The speakers pointed to the recent shift away from student passivity, and to the future of this new activism at Brooklyn Tech. Students are beginning to see sexism and racism as oppressions that stem from the capitalist profit system. Most important, the power of multiracial and male-female unity has grown stronger. That’s the biggest lesson of this school year, and it has been learned by hundreds, if not thousands, of students.
Asher’s administration is trying to intimidate this courageous movement by monitoring and disciplining student leaders. At the same time, the principal is attempting to pacify students with a reform “action plan.” But the administrators refuse to release the action plan or do anything of substance. They’re counting on the activist students graduating or losing their fighting spirit over the summer.
The Fight Continues
Seeds of resistance at Brooklyn Tech are just taking root. Since last winter, when the #blackinbrooklyntech campaign began to raise anti-racist consciousness, students have grown bolder and more confident. They are grappling with how to overcome the losing idea that fighting racism is a problem best left to Black students alone. Students who insist on expressing anti-Black racism have been marginalized. In many classrooms, teachers have taken a firm anti-racist stand. Dozens used their unassigned periods to implement plans supporting anti-racist education. Now the fight is expanding to tackle sexism and involve more of the school community. Students are already planning how to keep the struggle going next year.
There is still more work to do. More teachers and students need to be won to the fight so that it can continue for years to come. Sexism and racism must be understood as integral parts of capitalism. PL’ers are already selling CHALLENGE at Tech (see letter). Some students have come to Party study groups and May Day. As the struggle continues, we can sharpen our discussions to talk about communist revolution. The true power of student unity is felt not in struggle for reforms, but in the fight for revolution to overthrow the capitalist class. The bosses’ system seeks to win over today’s youth—tomorrow’s workers—to accept a future of growing inequality, fascist repression and imperialist war.  When young people are won to the struggle for a communist future, where there is no need for racism and sexism, larger victories lie ahead. Join the fight!