This gets at something I wonder about. This particular young lady may not be nude because anybody told her she had to be, but her story, and the ease with which her mother believed it, suggest that schools have the authority to compel their student to forgo clothing perhaps even without the need to fabricate some kind of punishment narrative to explain it. We already know that parents have basically unlimited discretion to withdraw clothing privileges from their dependents. How far could other sources of authority such as schools, individual teachers, coaches, clergy, and medical professionals go to enjoin their charges to go bare? And what if the parents disagree?
Objections to nudity are by definition irrelevant. Any authority can be thought up to enforce a nude sentence/prescription. The punishment for going nude without proper authority (punishment/prescription or volunteer registration) is to be sentenced to more nudity. The punishment for wearing clothes while one is supposed to be bare, is to be sentenced to more nudity.
The whole point is to increase nudity, particularly among women.
Schools have pretty much the same unlimited authority over nudity as parents, in theory, but things are a little more complicated than that first suggests. Most obviously because they’re institutions rather than individuals. They typically have a policy to follow and can’t just make up rules as they go along. And they’re accountable to various people: An elected school board, federal equality regulations, parents who could withdraw their children if the rules seemed unreasonable, or in the case of colleges, students who can just quit, and so on.
But as you suspected, it doesn’t have to be limited to punishments. The story that they’re randomly picking students to spend a whole year naked is a bit far fetched, but as we found out that’s not really what happened. Requiring students to spend a shorter time naked for a certain class or something wouldn’t be too unusual. For instance all students in an art class might be required to take a turn as a nude model. There’s been a few references “Body Comfort Week” or similar programs where students have to spend time naked with the goal for improving self-image, confidence, and so on.
Teachers derive their authority from the school, so they would have to follow school policy. Presumably if a teacher tried to force a student to strip unreasonably or against policy they could appeal to higher-ups and get it overturned and the teacher might get in trouble depending on how egregious it was. Coaches affiliated with a school would be the same way.
daican-2 just did one about sports, as separate from schools. I allowed it, because sports always has a certain teaching element so you could sort of see this as an extension of the law for schools, but I don’t consider that to be the norm.
I don’t think clergy have any nudity powers. Of course they can condemn you to everlasting torment if you don’t cooperate, which can be pretty persuasive if you’re inclined to believe that stuff.
Medical professionals, have the ability to write a nudity prescription, but you can refuse it (though this would be up to parents in the case of a minor I suppose). So this is really more like a specialized form of voluntary registration.
Feel free to ask more questions, I always enjoy thinking about stuff like this.
You are an excellent example of why a voluntary year of nudity makes sense.
The school should offer extra credit across all subjects as an incentive to make such a commitment within the first week of the school year.
This gets at something I wonder about. This particular young lady may not be nude because anybody told her she had to be, but her story, and the ease with which her mother believed it, suggest that schools have the authority to compel their student to forgo clothing perhaps even without the need to fabricate some kind of punishment narrative to explain it. We already know that parents have basically unlimited discretion to withdraw clothing privileges from their dependents. How far could other sources of authority such as schools, individual teachers, coaches, clergy, and medical professionals go to enjoin their charges to go bare? And what if the parents disagree?
Objections to nudity are by definition irrelevant. Any authority can be thought up to enforce a nude sentence/prescription. The punishment for going nude without proper authority (punishment/prescription or volunteer registration) is to be sentenced to more nudity. The punishment for wearing clothes while one is supposed to be bare, is to be sentenced to more nudity.
The whole point is to increase nudity, particularly among women.
I’m shocked to hear that there are ulterior motives at work here!
Great question.
Schools have pretty much the same unlimited authority over nudity as parents, in theory, but things are a little more complicated than that first suggests. Most obviously because they’re institutions rather than individuals. They typically have a policy to follow and can’t just make up rules as they go along. And they’re accountable to various people: An elected school board, federal equality regulations, parents who could withdraw their children if the rules seemed unreasonable, or in the case of colleges, students who can just quit, and so on.
But as you suspected, it doesn’t have to be limited to punishments. The story that they’re randomly picking students to spend a whole year naked is a bit far fetched, but as we found out that’s not really what happened. Requiring students to spend a shorter time naked for a certain class or something wouldn’t be too unusual. For instance all students in an art class might be required to take a turn as a nude model. There’s been a few references “Body Comfort Week” or similar programs where students have to spend time naked with the goal for improving self-image, confidence, and so on.
Teachers derive their authority from the school, so they would have to follow school policy. Presumably if a teacher tried to force a student to strip unreasonably or against policy they could appeal to higher-ups and get it overturned and the teacher might get in trouble depending on how egregious it was. Coaches affiliated with a school would be the same way.
daican-2 just did one about sports, as separate from schools. I allowed it, because sports always has a certain teaching element so you could sort of see this as an extension of the law for schools, but I don’t consider that to be the norm.
I don’t think clergy have any nudity powers. Of course they can condemn you to everlasting torment if you don’t cooperate, which can be pretty persuasive if you’re inclined to believe that stuff.
Medical professionals, have the ability to write a nudity prescription, but you can refuse it (though this would be up to parents in the case of a minor I suppose). So this is really more like a specialized form of voluntary registration.
Feel free to ask more questions, I always enjoy thinking about stuff like this.