School Bans Cheerleading Team's Spaghetti-Strap Tops

Unprotected sex, drug abuse and bringing weapons to school are three of the biggest issues facing teenagers in this country. If you're a member of the Evansville (Wisconsin) High School pom pon team, however, it's something much more sinister: Midwestern sensibilities run amok.

The school board has banned the team's spaghetti-strap tops because, according to principal Scott Everson, they violate the student dress code. Never mind that the team has worn the tops for four years. Or, as poms captain Rachel Ammerman said at Monday's board meeting, "We spent thousands of dollars of our own money."

Via the GazetteXtra.com's Gina Duwe:

District Administrator Heidi Carvin apologized to team members after speakers called her out on an e-mail she sent to a poms parent. Her e-mail mentioned dating violence, teen pregnancy and lack of respect for young women as issues of concern in the community. Carvin said she never meant her words to be interpreted as problems caused by poms members and said she very much admires the good, hard work the girls put in. ...

Senior Nicole Thomas, a former poms member for three years, said she watches the team in the stands and hears other spectators say how ridiculous the uniform situation is. She said she doesn't hear boys in the stands say they are turned on because they see the girls' shoulders. Morals are what cause teen pregnancy, not being on a poms team, she said.

Somehow that wasn't obvious to everyone.

Duwe adds that "Parents and students said the poms team was being treated unfairly because uniforms in other sports violate the dress code, show more skin or are tighter to the body, such as wrestlers who wear singlets or cross country members who run in sports bras and short shorts."

(To be clear, wrestlers don't wear tights -- they wear the required uniform.)

Either way, decide for yourself: here are the uniforms in question (photo credit: Dan Lassiter, The Janesville Gazette). Pay particular attention to the note at the bottom -- "Order reprint of this photo." The message: spaghetti straps: bad ... but not so bad that somebody shouldn't make a few bucks off of them.

via Out of Bounds