Fight Looms Over School-Uniform Order -- California District Faces Court Challenge Over New Requirement

LONG BEACH, Calif. - By adopting mandatory school uniforms, the Long Beach Unified School District may be poised for a moment of historic triumph and national notoriety.

Or the district may be in for the fight of its life.

In September, the Long Beach district will be the first in the nation to require students to wear uniforms to school. The Board of Education approved a policy in January that mandates uniforms for every student through the eighth grade.

Hundreds of schools in other large cities - Baltimore, Detroit, Miami, New Orleans - are returning to the staid, black- or blue-and-white uniforms that once were common in U.S. schools. A growing number of educators say students who dress alike behave better, commit fewer crimes, stop comparing designer labels and leave their gang affiliations at home.

But no district outside Long Beach has made uniforms a mandate. Wherever public school students wear uniforms, they do so voluntarily. School officials elsewhere stop short of requiring uniforms, and they share the same fears: court challenges, First Amendment rights and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Baltimore schools have avoided mandatory uniforms for fear that some parents could not afford them. A similar policy in Oakland schools remains voluntary because parents haven't asked for mandatory uniforms. In New Orleans schools, too, principals and parents seem content with optional uniforms.

All three districts are happy with school uniforms. But they also share a belief that is accepted almost universally in U.S. schools: You simply cannot force a student to wear a uniform.

Many educators praise Long Beach schools for taking the bold next step. Others say the district faces an inevitable court battle it cannot win.

If challenged in court, Long Beach will have to clear several legal hurdles to prove its mandatory policy is just.

Some national education officials say this thicket of laws is enough to make any school district stop short of mandatory uniforms, in spite of the precedent set in Long Beach.

"The thing is, the court rulings are quite clear on student rights," said Gary Marx, senior associate executive director of the American Association of School Administrators in Arlington, Va. "We probably won't see a great number of school districts moving (toward school uniforms) until they feel the courts have made some decisions that go in the direction of uniforms."

Ed Eveland, the school board member who wrote the Long Beach uniform policy, knows his district may be headed for turbulent times. "It takes a little courage to do something like this," Eveland said.

But Long Beach educators are confident in their uniform mandate. Perhaps their most important legal ally is a bill introduced in the state legislature around the time Long Beach officials drafted their uniform policy. A measure by state Sen. Phil Wyman, R-Hanford, would permit a school district to do exactly what Long Beach schools have done: adopt a mandatory uniform. Proponents say it would be the first modern state or national law speaking directly to school uniforms.

The measure notes that California schools have tried banning specific items of gang clothing. But it argues that these rules simply can't keep up with the ever-changing criminal wardrobe.

Three months after the adoption of mandatory uniforms in Long Beach and the introduction of the Wyman bill, opposition to the two is small but growing.

Wyman's office has received only one telephone call complaining about the bill. Long Beach district officials say almost every parent is supportive.

But Gene Kinsey, a Long Beach attorney and district parent, has surfaced as a potential foil to the district's plan.

"Let me tell you, I've had lots and lots of phone calls," Kinsey said. "I've had teachers tell me that they will resign if this goes into effect."

Kinsey, who says he has been contacted by 50 or 60 residents who oppose school uniforms, questions the district's authority to force students to wear uniforms.

"I asked them how they were going to enforce the rule, and when I didn't get any answer, I started to become very skeptical about it," Kinsey said.

Kinsey believes the mandatory uniform policy will stand or fall with the outcome of the bill. He says district officials have confirmed this, and he wants the district to say publicly that the policy remains voluntary unless or until the bill becomes law.

The school district has hired an attorney, Warren Kinsler of Cerritos, to help with the issues raised by the uniform policy. Kinsler said that while the policy is tied closely to the state bill, the district does not need a uniform law to uphold its mandate.

Kinsler said the district has not yet decided how to enforce the policy; that is, what to do if a student refuses to wear a uniform or a parent refuses to buy one. "The board will have to make a decision," he said.

Apart from the threat posed by Kinsey and other local parents, the greatest legal challenge to mandatory school uniforms will probably come from civil libertarians. The ACLU has not yet taken a formal position on the new rule, but the organization has led the legal fight against a flurry of new, restrictive public-school dress codes enacted in recent months.

Margaret Pena, legislative director of the ACLU's Sacramento office, said the organization is poised to attack the Wyman bill, challenging the constitutionality of mandatory uniforms.

"We are very likely to oppose it based on the fact that clothing oftentimes is expressive, and it's a way for people to express political beliefs," Pena said of the bill. "Therefore, we think ordering school uniforms violates the First Amendment because it impacts on the freedom of expression."

By linking uniforms to school safety, lawmakers have tried to reinforce the bill against a constitutional challenge. Safety, after all, is among the primary concerns of educators. But Pena doubts uniform advocates can prove in court that nothing short of a full uniform will protect schoolchildren from gangs and violence.

In the meantime, Long Beach school officials are also preparing for a court battle. They are collecting data from several district schools that already have optional uniforms, showing evidence of improved attendance, better academic performance and improved student attitudes. They hope to convince a judge that the benefits of a uniform outweigh its disadvantages.

"We're trying to get as much information as we can that shows this (policy) is good in a number of ways," Eveland said. "If we can show that conduct (is) improving, if we can show that the achievement test scores are going up . . . who wouldn't buy that?"