Principal tells girls not to wear leggings 'unless you are a size 0 or 2'
A South Carolina high school principal is under fire for fat shaming female students while attempting to enforce the school’s dress code.
Instead of just saying that leggings are not allowed, principal Heather Taylor told students in grade 9 and 10 at Stratford high School, at two separate assemblies, that wearing tights makes girls above a size two look fat.
“I’ve told you this before, I’m going to tell you this now, unless you are a size zero or two and you wear something like that, even though you’re not fat, you look fat,” Taylor said to her students.
When confronted later by angry parents, Taylor apparently tried to downplay her comments and said that what she had actually said to the students was entirely different than what they told their parents.
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Unfortunately for Taylor, someone made a recording of what she said in the assemblies, which corroborated what the students had told their parents about the fat-shaming comments.
Lacy Thompson-Harper, a mom of a daughter at the high school, took to Facebook to express her disapproval with Taylor’s initial comments as well as what she said during their phone call together.
“Yesterday, during the 10th grade assembly at Stratford High School, the principal body shamed an entire student body,” she wrote in a private Facebook post she shared with ScaryMommy.
“Body shaming teenage girls is uncalled for, inappropriate and unprofessional. When I spoke with her, she talked around the issue, and made excuse after excuse, effectively calling all of the students liars.”
“I feel that parents need to know what was said by a woman who is an educator, and is supposed to be a role model for these kids,” Thompson-Harper continued. “Right now, I’m a very angry parent, with a very angry daughter.”
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Taylor agreed that she would change the wording of her speech for her assembly with the grade 11 and 12 groups as well as call back the 9th and 10th grade students to apologize to them.
Allison Veazy, another student at the high school, told WCBD-TV how damaging Taylor’s comments were, particularly since she regularly wears leggings outside of school.
“It was very hurtful,” Veazy said. “I felt like my size made me look disgusting towards someone in the clothes that I wear.”
“To think that someone would think that I look like a stuffed sausage — that was kind of hurtful.”
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