Writing Feature Articles - Step 1 - Lesson 1 | Page 50

Writing Feature Articles - Lesson
Writing Feature Articles - Handout . a

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Fashion Police
Bans on sagging jeans raise the question:
What happens when fashion moves from being merely objectionable to illegal?
By Niko Koppel, Scholastic Upfront, October 1, 2007
Jamarcus Marshall, a 17-year-old high school sophomore in
Mans?eld, Louisiana, believes that no one should be able to tell
him how low to wear his jeans. "It's up to the person who's wearing
the pants," he says. Marshall's sagging pants, a style popularized in
the early 1990s by hip-hop artists, are becoming a legal issue in a
growing number of communities, including his own.
Lawmakers in at least three states—Louisiana, Georgia, and New
Jersey—have decided that pants worn low enough to expose
underwear pose a threat to the public, and they are trying to enact
indecency ordinances to stop it.
Since June, sagging pants have been against the law in Delcambre,
Louisiana, a town of 2,200 that is 80 miles southwest of Baton Rouge. Offenders face a ?ne of as much as $500 or
up to a six-month jail sentence. A law that took effect last month in Mans?eld, a town of 5,500 near Shreveport,
also mandates a ?ne or jail time for sagging pants. Similar measures are being considered in Atlanta and New
Jersey.
But when fashion moves from being merely objectionable to illegal, constitutional questions about freedom of
expression arise: Can the government tell you what to wear?
The American Civil Liberties Union doesn't think so. "This style may be distasteful to some, but do we really think
it should be legislated?" says Benetta Standly of the A.C.L.U. of Georgia. "Our answer is no. We don't think this is
in the realm of public policy. We don't think it's the government's role."
In fact, efforts to outlaw sagging pants in Virginia and statewide in Louisiana in 2004, failed because of
such concerns. In August, the Town Council of Stratford, Conn., rejected a baggy-pants ban, deciding it was
unconstitutional and would unjustly encourage racial pro?ling.
School Dress Codes
Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, is even more blunt in his opposition: "This is the kind of
of?cious meddling in personal behavior that makes a laughing stock of the of?cials who do it."
But advocates of the laws say these measures are about enforcing public decency.
"It's a fad like hot pants; however, I think it crosses the line when a person shows their backside," says
Councilwoman Annette Lartigue, who is drafting a sagging pants ordinance in Trenton, N.J., the state capital. "You
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