School did not discriminate against student for making her wear a dress

A tribunal has found a female student was not discriminated against by her school for being required to wear a skirt on formal school occasions.

Female and male school children can wear pants. Picture: Jono Searle

A tribunal has found a female student was not discriminated against by her school for being required to wear a skirt on formal school occasions.

The Queensland student, through her parents, made a complaint to the Queensland Human Rights Commission claiming that she suffered direct and indirect discrimination by a new uniform policy that required female students in years 7 to 12 to wear a skirt to formal school occasions such as school outings or excursions, school ceremonies and events, class photographs, and awards nights, while male students could wear shorts or trousers.

Female students can wear pants and shorts every other day.

The complaint was referred by the commissioner to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, where the student, who is under 18 and cannot be identified for legal reasons, was represented by her father.

Over numerous hearings, the student argued she was treated less favourably than male students because she needed to take “greater care” to maintain modesty when sitting; that she would not be as warm as male students who wore pants; that she could face negative consequences like expulsion or suspension if she didn’t oblige with the policy; and that she would need to buy two separate uniforms, which was an added financial burden.

In a statement, the student said “when wearing a skirt, there is an extra level of thinking required about the way I move and sit, as to not expose myself”.

In the initial claim, she also said she suffered negative psychological effects because of “negative gender stereotypes and gendered power relations” and because “traditional gender identities were entrenched by the clear visual divide between female and male students” but that argument was not pressed in the hearing.

The school, which cannot be named, denied the student was treated any less favourably than the male students, and described the allegations as “offensive and baseless”.

Lawyers for the school said she could apply for an exemption from the formal occasion uniform policy; that the policy was reasonable because it applied only to events for about eight hours a year; that no other parents had complained about the extra expense; and that there were skirts on loan for special ­occasions.

QCAT member Jeremy Gordon, overseeing the proceedings, said any difficulty faced by a female student in having to wear a skirt on formal school occasions “was lessened by being able to apply for an exemption” and there was evidence an exemption had been granted in the past.

He also noted that statistics provided by the school suggested female students “were generally content to wear skirts”.

“These means that if, for one reason or another, the complainant did not want to wear a skirt on formal occasions, this view was not shared by other female students,” he said.

There was also nothing in the uniform policy stopping a female student from wearing shorts or bike shorts under the formal skirt which “would solve the modesty issue”.

Mr Gordon found that while “there was different treatment between the sexes”, the evidence did not show “that the different treatment was unfavourable to the complainant” and so the discrimination arguments failed.

He dismissed the complaint.