A girl wearing a shirt.

@itsari.aleise/TikTok

‘I’m just confused as to why shoulders are distracting’: TikToker defends little sister against school principal after she gets dress-coded

'This is like an outfit she would wear to church.'

 

Clara Wang

IRL

Posted on Sep 28, 2021   Updated on Sep 28, 2021, 12:45 pm CDT

A TikTok influencer went viral for confronting her little sister’s principal after she got dress-coded for wearing a shoulder-baring long sleeve top.

TikToker Arianna Hailey filmed the confrontation with the principal and posted the video to her TikTok account, @itsari.aleise, which boasts over 9.7 million followers. The clip has accumulated over 9.1 million views and 2.5 million likes since being posted on Monday. “My little sister got dress coded so I went up to the school,” text overlay on the video reads.

Hailey asks her little sister in the video “what’s wrong” with her outfit. Her sister lets Hailey know “it’s my shirt.”

Hailey, seemingly bewildered, asks: “Which part? The shoulders?”

“What’s wrong with her shoulders?” she says, turning to ask an apparent school official. Her little sister jumps in to say “it’s out of dress code for some reason.”

“How is that out of dress code?” Hailey asks, once again turning to the school official, who is out of the frame.

“We can’t wear spaghetti straps. We can’t wear crop tops,” her little sister says before Hailey cuts her off to express her confusion.

“I’m just confused as to why shoulders are distracting,” Hailey says.

The text overlay on the video notes there is a “loud silence” and that the school official calls the school’s principal on the phone.

“This is ridiculous. I’ll sit. I’ll wait,” Hailey says before telling her sister: “You’re not changing.”

“You look really cute. She looks really cute,” she says to her sister and the camera.

Hailey then points the camera in the direction of her sister to reveal what she is wearing. Her younger sister, who appears to be in middle school, is wearing a long sleeve pink top and loose jeans that completely cover her stomach and chest.

“This is like an outfit she would wear to church,” Hailey says to the apparent principal, who agrees that Hailey’s sister “looks really cute” but says that it is a “shoulder issue.”

The 24-second video then cuts to Hailey sitting in the car and scream-venting to the camera.

“SHOULDERS?! You’re telling me that a boy in middle school would look at my sister like that?” she says.

Hailey alleged in the comments section at the time of posting that “If I didn’t bring a change of clothes (the school) would give her ISS.”

Most of the 32,700 commenters commiserated with her younger sister and expressed anger at the school’s dress code. School dress codes are a frequent topic of controversy, with many saying they sexualize young girls.

“My jaw DROPPED when I saw the outfit. The school is insane,” @jordan_snyder05 said.

“What’s actually distracting is taking a child out of class because she actually has … shoulders,” another commented.

The Daily Dot reached out to Arianna Hailey for comment.


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*First Published: Sep 28, 2021, 12:02 pm CDT