An Exposed Ankle Kept Student From Attending Prom

By Devon Abelman, Allure

Prom can be a fraught even in any teen's life, and finding a dress one feel's comfortable in is just one way to ease at least some of the anxiety. Instead of buying one off the rack, Amari Williams, a student at Carencro High School in Lafayette, Louisana., saved up her own money to get a custom-made prom dress. Her mom, Troynetta Williams, even told Yahoo Style that Amari didn't go to her junior prom to make this year's that much more special. However, in spite of all her planning, Amari's prom dream scene didn't quite materialize how she had pictured.

[post_ads]Once prom night came around, Amari was barred from going inside with her friends. Why? Her blue printed dress didn't fit dress code. But it's not what you think. Amari didn't opt for a butt-grazing mini dress or a cleavage-baring number. Instead, the asymmetrical hem of her dress involved an exposed ankle. Yes, just one of her ankles was on full display. Gasp.

Despite having her dress approved by her school principal Mary Qualey, Amari says Qualey was the one who told her that her outfit violated the dress code for the night. “Hearing from Ms. Qualey, the person who approved it, hearing her say I can’t get in, that was heartbreaking because you approved it but now you’re saying something totally different," Amari told KLFY News.
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Back in January, the school allegedly sent a letter to parents outlining the guidelines for prom-night attire. One of them included full-length dresses. "The length has to be all the way to the ground, all the way around; kind of easy to remember," Lafayette Parish School System chief administrative officer Joe Craig explained to the local news station. "In this case, the dress was not all the way to the ground and on that basis, it wasn’t considered a formal dress.”

Troynetta begs to differ. If anything, her daughter was singled out. She went to the prom to pick Amari up with scissors and pins at the ready, only to notice other students, whose dresses also violated the dress code, being admitted. “The dress code, when I looked over it, it did mention that the dress had to be floor length, and they considered it not formal since it wasn’t the same length all the way around,” Troynetta explained to Yahoo Style. “But then I brought it to [the principal's] attention that some of the rules in the dress-code policy also state that midriffs, high splits, or low back dresses aren’t allowed. 

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As I’d been standing there, I saw she’d been allowing all those types of dresses into prom, but here she denies my daughter, and she’s dressed appropriately, not showing any skin or anything inappropriate at all. Her response to me was she used her own judgement.”Although the length of Amari's dress might have been the easiest excuse to deny her entrance, the print of the garment — a graphic and colorful African-inspired textile — might have been the real reason administrators objected. "[Amari] was the only one that had an African-style dress,” Troynetta said. Whatever reason Amari was barred from prom, one fact is undeniable. If schools, institutions, or organizations are going to enact strict dress code standards, enforcement must be handled with supreme judiciousness. In this case, we're sad to report that clearly didn't happen.
  
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