A group of girls at McHenry East and West High Schools in McHenry, Ill. is banding together to protest their school's dress code. Their school district requires students to wear shirts or dresses with sleeves long enough to cover their shoulders. 

"If you wear a sundress, the administration will come up to you and ask you to put on your jacket or leave class," sophomore Hailey Everhart, one of the students who launched the protest, told NBC Chicago. 

The protest began a few days ago when Hailey realized how sexist McHenry's dress code is and how it teaches students that boys can't control themselves while sexualizing a girl's shoulders. She asked some of her friends, including sophomores Dani Herreweyers and Courtney McIntyre, if they would be interested in taking a stand with her. They were, and Dani suggested they create a Facebook group designed to call attention to the problem. 

"This page is to get the attention of schools that limit girls to what they should wear to school because we will distract boys from learning, when the reality is the schools should be teaching boys not to think of girls as sexual objects," they wrote on Facebook. "The girls who made this page are from MCHS, a school that frowns upon showing shoulders, if you do, you will get yelled at to cover up, even if its hot out and your just trying to stay cool like everyone else. We would like to let the school (and all schools that have this rule) to know we do not agree with this rule, we believe it is teaching girls at an early age that boys are always looking at their bodies. The dress code is shaming women for being women, that shoulders are in no way sexual. We still believe there should be boundaries, we are not trying to encourage girls to show more skin, but rather to be comfortable in their skin and what they wear. Girls should be able to feel good in what they wear, not be shamed for it!"

They asked students to come to school on Thursday with bare shoulders in protest of the dress code, but to avoid wearing anything too provocative. Boys were encouraged to wear tank tops on Thursday, too.

"If you get in trouble Thursday and are asked to change just simple say 'I am peacefully protesting and i am not going to change.' The most they can really do is make you sit in ISS, which won't even be terrible with the amount of people they will have to send there," they advise.

Sophomore Emily Spooner has spread the campaign to Instagram with @showyourshoulders, an account that documents outfits that have gotten girls in trouble, like the one below.

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The protest was temporarily called off when Hailey, Dani, and Courtney were approached by a group of senior girls, who felt the message could be conveyed more effectively through a private meeting with the principal. In an interview with Seventeen.com, Hailey explained that the seniors were afraid the school district would tighten the dress code to punish students for rebelling, or even make the switch to uniforms. 

The meeting with Principal Eric Blake never occurred, and the protest was reinstated the next day. Hailey estimates that 600 students will participate. 

"The dress code policy is conducive to the district as well as the students," the school administrators wrote in a statement. "It's unfortunate that some parents and students don't adhere to this policy."

Some parents, including Hailey's mom Nicole, support the campaign.

"You can wear short shorts that show butt cheeks and you can show cleavage and all that stuff, but shoulders you can't show," she said. "And I just don't get it."

Does your school have a similar dress code? Just know this: you have a bright, bare-shouldered future ahead of you, post-graduation. 

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Update, 6:30 p.m., 8/25/15: The protest on Thursday has been called off for the second time. The Facebook group's administrators wrote:

"Hello everyone, we have decided to once again cancel the protest. For we have been told by the same group of senior girls we have been talking to that they've got this under control and are going to follow the appropriate steps to changing it. They are Kayla Qualls and Hannah Altman(Caitlin Mills too but she's been absent since she is sick) so if you guys have any further questions about this whole situation please contact them, as they will be more helpful with answering your questions! Thank you everyone for all the support and helping making it so big and noticed. It's came to the point where as many of you know, NBC News, Magazines, Radio Stations and News paper have contacted us! Without all of you guys I don't think all of this would've been possible, we can't thank you enough!!!"

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Hannah Orenstein

Hannah Orenstein is the author of several novels, including Meant to Be Mine (out June 7, 2022), Head Over Heels, Love at First Like, and Playing with Matches. She's also the Deputy Editor of Dating at Elite Daily. She lives in Brooklyn.