Two students who attend a public high school in small-town Tennessee are reportedly spending the first weekend in December in jail because they wore saggy pants to school one too many times.
The students are seniors at Bolivar Central High School in the town of Bolivar (pop. 5,417), according to Memphis CBS affiliate WREG-TV.
The hard weekend time — served within the confines of the Hardeman County jail — comes after local police criminally charged four students with indecent exposure because of their saggy pants.
The campus cop at Bolivar Central High had repeatedly warned the offending students to stop wearing saggy pants, court documents reveal.
The Hardeman County Schools student handbook has a lengthy, strict dress code “designed to reflect the will of the school community.”
“Students whose dress, or lack of dress, is distracting or disruptive will not be permitted to remain in school,” the handbook explains.
“Pants must be worn and fitted at the waist line,” it also declares. “Low slung, baggy seat, baggy legged, or bell-bottom pants are not permitted.”
The student handbook does not mention prison time for dress code violations.
Local views of the decision to imprison wearers of saggy pants for their fashion choices varied.
“I think they should maybe do some community service, pick up some trash, help at the dog kennels, things like that,” Bolivar resident Sharon Till told WREG. “I think putting them in jail is just a little much.”
Resident Willie Hoyle lamented the state of youth apparel.
“The environment is already bad,” Hoyle told the CBS station. “And it ain’t going to get no better if the older kids don’t try to show the younger kids anything.”
It’s not clear who decided to make the students’ saggy pants an issue for Hardeman County’s criminal courts.
The disciplinary fate of the two students who aren’t currently in the slammer is also unclear.
Debates rage over pants elevation across America. At Henderson State University, a public college in Arkadelphia, Ark., school officials put up signs on campus this fall warning that saggy pants, along with profanity or rude behavior, would not be tolerated. Critics characterized the signs as racist. (RELATED: University Ban On Saggy Pants Decried As Racist)
Last year, a rural Oklahoma high school teacher showed up on her first day of work drunk and wearing no pants at all. The incident occurred at Wagoner High School, about 40 miles east of Tulsa. On a hot August morning, school administrators called police after two other teachers found the teacher “kind of disoriented” and in a depantsed state in a classroom. Police officers spoke with Hill, who admitted that she was under the influence of alcohol. (RELATED: Back To School: High School Teacher Shows Up On First Day Drunk, WITHOUT PANTS)
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