Texas school bans all-black clothing, saying it’s associated with ‘mental health issues’

A middle school in El Paso, Texas, has banned its students from wearing all-black clothing, saying the color is “associated with depression and mental health issues.”

According to the local news channel KFOX14Charles High School sent a letter to parents informing them that the school’s uniform policy would no longer allow students to wear all-black clothing. Instead, the school’s dress code was rewritten to only allow students to wear khaki pants or blue jeans, with black or green polo shirts and sweaters.

The changes were necessary to “(eliminate) a look that has taken over campus with students wearing black tops and black bottoms, which has become more associated with depression and mental health issues and/or crime than with happy, healthy kids ready to learn,” the letter reads, according to KFOX14.

“They don’t allow students to wear black clothing from top to bottom,” Norma De La Rosa, president of the El Paso Teachers Association, said in a statement clarifying. “They can wear black shorts to gym class. And they can wear it on free dress day, but they can’t wear it from top to bottom.”

The policy was immediately met with a strong backlash from parents, who said it was unfair and absurd.

“Asking students to wear a different color won’t magically make them a completely different person,” one parent commented online.

Officials at the El Paso Independent School District appear to have distanced themselves from the decision following the backlash. “The campus prematurely communicated the dress code change as a final decision rather than a recommendation. We regret the miscommunication, particularly the intent behind the changes,” one school district said. statement, obtained by the BBC, read.

This dress code change is one of the strangest attempts to address rising rates of depression and anxiety among teens. It’s ridiculous to think that clothing is the cause, rather than a meaningless correlation, of a student’s behavioral or mental health issues.

The move reflects a form of security among school officials. Instead of trying to address the cause of students’ behavioral problems, school officials are needlessly inhibiting harmless self-expression—the kind of thing that might prevent, rather than cause, mental health problems.

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