A recent administration decision to explicitly ban students who are grinding or “not adequately clothed” from school dances elicited widespread controversy across campus, with 82 percent of surveyed students in opposition to the decision, according to a survey sent to students by The Phillipian earlier this week.
As of last Saturday, students grinding will be asked to leave and have a conversation with their Cluster Dean, House Counselor or Advisor. Those wearing inadequate clothing will be turned away or sent home to “cover up,” said an e-mail Paul Murphy, Dean of Students, sent on Saturday morning.
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The behavior guidelines are not, in fact, new. Chaperones in the past have turned away students dressed inappropriately at dances, though the rule was not widely enforced or explicitly stated until Saturday morning, said Murphy in an interview with The Phillipian last Saturday.
“We’ve sent kids back to their dorms to put more clothes on, occasionally, and it tends to be girls and it tends to be female chaperones… We’ve just said, go back and wear shoes, or put on a shirt, and people tend to do that, and they follow the directions and go back,” Murphy said.
The clarified restrictions have drawn much opposition from students, who are overwhelmingly against it, according to The Phillipian’s survey.
Of the 672 students surveyed—357 females and 311 males—82 percent were opposed to the ban on inadequate clothing and sexually suggestive dancing.
In the free response sections, many students expressed concern that the terms “inadequate clothing” were too vague, and would overwhelmingly result in punishing female students only. “At a school that is progressive enough to let the students choose the dress appropriate for class without a dress code, it is setting a double standard that we are not allowed the freedom to dress as we want on the weekends, especially social functions,” wrote one respondent. “[The policy of turning inadequately-clothed students away] is not about shaming people as they come to the dance so they have to leave, it’s so that they make a better decision before they even come in the first place,” said Murphy.
Responding to the ban on sexually suggestive dancing, students conceded that while grinding often makes chaperones and other students uncomfortable, prohibiting it will do little to resolve underlying pressures for students to “hook up.”
A respondent wrote, “I understand how students dancing in a sexual way could make teacher chaperones uncomfortable. But I don’t necessarily think banning grinding is the answer. If grinding is banned, people will flat out stop going to dances and instead do worse things, getting into more trouble. This will also hurt clubs that host dances, like the GSA dance or regional dances. If the reason for banning grinding is to stop students from casual hookups I don’t think that is not going to stop hooking up.”
A different respondent wrote, “I strongly object to the idea that grinding shows a lack of self respect. If I choose to participate in a type of dancing that I enjoy, I am showing nothing but self respect.”
Another respondent wrote, “Rather than banning it as a whole, students that attempt to grind on others without consent should receive warnings and then they should be banned from dances.” Saturday’s e-mail also sparked discussion on hook up culture and the administration’s steps to address it. Thirty-five percent of surveyed students believe the “hookup” culture is a problem at Andover. Forty-five percent of female respondents and 23 percent of male respondents find it problematic. The percentage of students who believed that “hookup culture” is problematic increased by grade level. Twenty-three percent of Juniors surveyed believe the hookup culture is problematic, in contrast with the 40 percent of Seniors surveyed who believe the same.
Eighty-two percent of students oppose separate dances for upperclassmen and underclassmen. Students who indicated that the hookup culture is problematic were more supportive of the dresscode restriction, grinding ban and grade-separated dances. Seventy percent oppose the dress code restriction, 73 percent oppose the grinding ban, and 77 percent oppose grade-specific dances.
“I’m sure everyone, including freshmen, is capable of making their own decisions. The school shouldn’t try to make decisions for us. Besides, if it’s going to happen, trust me, the school won’t be able to stop it. Not only that, but a stricter dress code is only restricting our personal expression, which I thought was a strong value at Andover,” wrote a female survey respondent. Because all school events are chaperoned by faculty members, Murphy said a key factor in the decision was chaperones’ comfort levels regarding inappropriate dancing.
“Some people will say, ‘I’ll chaperone a movie, I’ll chaperone a trip to the Loop, but I will not chaperone a dance, I don’t want to be put into that position,’” said Murphy.
In contrast with the overwhelming student disapproval of the change, 82 percent of the 167 faculty and staff surveyed—101 females and 66 males—supported the ban on grinding. Sixty-seven percent supported the dress code restriction. A majority of 62 percent, however, do not approve of separate dances for upperclassmen and underclassmen.
Eleven percent of faculty are current dance chaperones, and 30 percent were chaperones in the past. 59 percent have never chaperoned a dance while at Andover.
Current faculty dance chaperones supported the grinding ban with a smaller majority of 73 percent, and were evenly split on support for the dresscode restrictions. However, 83 percent of former dance chaperones and faculty who had never chaperoned a dance supported the grinding ban.
A faculty respondent wrote, “I believe many girls on campus think of underdressing as empowering and feminist, but ignore the image they project. They reinforce the image they are fighting, and are a bad influence on younger girls who think they must do this to be cool.” Seventy percent of faculty who had never chaperoned a dance and 65 percent of former chaperones supported the dress code restrictions.
“I think it is hypocritical of the faculty to monitor dances in this way when we allow closed door parietals. It seems we are less concerned with what might actually be going on between students than with whether or not we have to deal with it directly,” a faculty survey respondent said.
Seventy percent of all faculty and 84 percent of current faculty dance chaperones believe that the hookup culture is problematic on campus.
“What might be unique to Andover, though, is the rather disturbing belief that because students are ‘attending one of the greatest prep schools in the world’, to paraphrase the Co-Presidents, they are somehow older or more mature than they really are… Just because we have a lot of smart people here doesn’t mean that our student body is ready for a lot of the behaviors they are engaging in,” said a faculty survey respondent.
The decision was made “given conversations that the Cluster Deans and others have had with students and faculty chaperones,” read the e-mail, which was signed by the Cluster Deans and the Community Health Team.
“This has been an open question for years, and some of us felt that we should just at least take a stab at saying something, and not just hoping nothing bad happens and that people are comfortable,” said Murphy in an interview. “Some people have said, ‘Does the school have the right to tell us how to dance?’ Well yes, we do, it’s a private institution, we tell you guys to do a lot of things and you do it,” Murphy said.
**Students Respond**
**Isabel Jaregui ’17:** “As long as it’s not making other people really uncomfortable, as long as both parties are willing to take part in the activity, I think it’s fine…I think that’s good, that they should be sent back. We are in a school environment, and I think that people should respect that.”
**Armaan Singh ’14:** “I think he’s doing it with the intention of having kids demonstrate more respect towards themselves and their bodies if they don’t grind…I never thought of grinding really as a problem on campus, it definitely didn’t happen more than it did happen, so I don’t think it was necessary to highlight it and make such a big deal out of a very normal American activity.”
**Paulina Munn ’15: “** I understand that the school cannot support grinding, I just think that they shouldn’t go to this extent to stop it. They could encourage us not to do it, but people can basically make that decision for themselves, if they want to or don’t want to do that. I agree with it a little bit, I think that there were some outfits that were too revealing, and with really really youngly. I get that people want to dress nicely and provocatively, but I think that sometimes it’s a little bit past taste.”
**Jaleel Williams ’15** : “Especially because that’s what a lot of Andover’s hook up and dance culture has formed around, instead of trying to solve the problems that have formed from it, which is the way students treat sexuality instead of sexuality itself…As someone who does dress in that traditionally female “promiscuous” way, I’m curious to see if I would be affected by this, whether the administration would look the other way because, even though my shorts are just as short as hers, or probably shorter, they are not as likely to see me in that sexual light because it’s not associated with my gender role.”
**Megan Gatton ’17:**”I think it’s respect for the comfortability level of those around you, and yes, people may be judging you based on your appearance, which I think is just something you have to accept in our culture today, but I think it’s the right place and the right time, being in an environment that’s not necessarily appropriate. “
**Emma Khan’14: “** I think it gives the impression that the administration thinks that we’re “bad kids,” and even if that wasn’t what they meant. It’s like their saying that we don’t can’t make the right decisions for that kind of stuff, and we can do that, we go to boarding school.”
**Kai Kornegay ’14:** “I think it’s important to note that a lot of what is considered “provocative” dancing is rooted in Afro and Carribean and Latino culture, and to say that “that’s not okay,” is erasing a lot of culture that students on campus have…And I think this is yet another decision this year that has been made to affect the students that has been done without our consultation.”
**Kory Stuer ’15:”** I think less people will go because they want to hook up, and if they can’t hook up, if they can’t leave from a dance to hook up, they’ll just hook up anyways. If less people go, it’ll hurt a lot of clubs, because clubs do fundraisers, like Latin Arts Weekend or Black Arts Weekend, they do dances and admission to raise money for their clubs.”
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> [@phillipian](https://twitter.com/phillipian) Should say “inadequately clothed *girls” because that’s who will bear the brunt of this shaming rule.
>
> — Diondra D. Peck (@whutdapeck) [October 5, 2013](https://twitter.com/whutdapeck/statuses/386521519683543040)> — Leah Tamar (@leahshres) [October 5, 2013](https://twitter.com/leahshres/statuses/386501723428093952)
> Who’s up for a social experiment where I wear the same shorts as a girl & we see who has to leave the dance [#callingyourbluffadministration](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23callingyourbluffadministration&src=hash) — Jaleel D Williams (@JaleelDProblems) [October 5, 2013](https://twitter.com/JaleelDProblems/statuses/386545965836279808)
> And we can’t stop… The administration from trying to control our bodies [#whatareyoudoing](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23whatareyoudoing&src=hash)
>
> — Jaleel D Williams (@JaleelDProblems) [October 5, 2013](https://twitter.com/JaleelDProblems/statuses/386534370607390720)
> Next up: girl wearing feminist Tshirt kicked out of a dance for showing too much arm — charlie (@charliej33) [October 5, 2013](https://twitter.com/charliej33/statuses/386508104319651841)
> And on the fourth weekend pmurph said: No Touching.
>
> — Leah Tamar (@leahshres) [October 5, 2013](https://twitter.com/leahshres/statuses/386503102016147458)
> We now live in a weird fusion of “footloose” and “dirty dancing” [#pmurph](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23pmurph&src=hash) — Melly Belly (@MelBel823) [October 5, 2013](https://twitter.com/MelBel823/statuses/386506177523494912)
> Lol goodbye gelb
>
> — Mihika (@Mihikzz) [October 5, 2013](https://twitter.com/Mihikzz/statuses/386504271719841792)> >
