HS BOSS ‘RIPS’ CLOTHES
Sparks student sit-in
A city high-school principal sparked a raucous sit-in when she lectured students on the dress code, insisting, “What you wear is your intent.”
About 150 students at the highly regarded Museum School in Chelsea wrote protest messages on their bodies and flooded the hallway in revolt against what they called principal Darlene Miller’s “slut shaming” and the “rape culture” of blaming women for sexual assaults.
During a sophomore assembly Wednesday, Miller, 70, vowed to require dresscode violators to wear large shirts that would make them look like a “sack of potatoes,” witnesses said.
She then made the stern rebuke, “What you wear is your intent,” several students told The Post.
The next morning, students put up posters and fliers. “Stop teaching girls what to wear and start teaching PEOPLE what to think!” one said.
Administrators ran up and down the hall ripping the posters down.
“I’m focused on my education, but you’re focused on my chest,” sophomore Ashley Hawkins, 15, scrawled on the skin below her collarbone, and showed off the message by wearing a tank top.
Hawkins told The Post she was not allowed to attend class until she donned an oversize school T-shirt. An assistant principal even followed her to class to make sure she kept it on, Hawkins said.
Another student, Lilah Webb, 15, said a poster she tried to put up was yanked from her hands by the dean, Angela Skirianos. Webb wore a hand-lettered T-shirt that read, “End Rape Culture.”
Administrators forbade her to go to classes for most of the day, saying her shirt was disruptive and bore vulgar language.
Jeidy Aloi, 16 — who wore a shirt that read, “What I wear is not my intent. Stop glorifying rape culture” — was also banned from classes.
During lunch Thursday, kids poured into the hall and sat down, shouting, “What I wear is not my intent!” and, “I respect myself !”
During the protest, an NYPD cop showed up with a trainee, but was “smiling and laughing and chanting with us,” a student said.
The teens ended the hourlong protest after Miller invited 10 of them to meet with her to discuss their concerns.
Miller did not return messages seeking comment.