Want to Graduate? Wear a Dress

A high school senior in Alabama may not walk across the stage to collect her diploma with the rest of her class because school officials are insisting that Samantha Armistead wear a dress to graduation.

Samantha hasn't worn a dress since she was 8 years old, her mother Debra told the Semmes, Ala. Fox affiliate.

"We've asked if she could be allowed to wear pants similar to boys, and we were told girls wear dresses, not slacks," Debra Armistead told the station.

A principal at the school would not speak to Fox, but a school assistant confirmed that it is school policy that girls must wear a dress to graduation.

Debra Armistead says parents have told her to just make Samantha wear a dress. But she says, "It's really easy to say that when that's not you or your child, and it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. But you see pain in her eyes."

According to Fox, most of the high schools in the Mobile County Public School System have a similar dress code, but schools in the neighboring school district do not.