On the Friday of November 5th, 2021, a protest was held on Taft School grounds and attracted hundreds of students to participate. A new instagram account attracting a lot of attention called @tummies.for.taft coordinated the protest which represents the fight against the dress code. This anonymous leader has released stories on their account from girls who had been harassed or sexualized.

This account speaks for women and their voices for change when it comes to feeling comfortable in their own school environment, which led to the first protest against the dress code on Taft grounds. The protest was originally planned on November 4th as a walkout during 4th period but changed to the day after (still as a walkout) to continue into lunch.

When it was the day of the protest, many students were ready, writing words on their stomachs that represented their opinion, signs and posters speaking against the dress code and encouraging change, and purposely wearing crop tops and spaghetti straps to show off the skin that is so called “inappropriate”.

@tummies.for.taft feels like awareness was the main purpose of the protest. They explained ¨For me and this account, it was more about promoting it and making sure that students were aware that this event was happening at this school. Anyone was welcome to participate.¨

During the 4th period, many students joined the walkout for the cause or just to simply skip class and join the fun. Those extra students created a large amount of ruckus throughout the halls as they went from building to building, banging on lockers and stomping as they walked, chanting “Fight, fight, fight!” This disrupted many classes, attracting students who chose not to participate to look outside their classrooms and to record.

Administrators and teachers had a difficult time calming down the large groups of students outside, locking the building doors to prevent any others from joining.

“I can’t say I was completely happy, but everything I expected to happen, happened. My main goal was to let the admin know that students were not happy and were capable of holding an event like this. I wanted to add direct attention to my account, so I was happy with all the attention it brought to my account.” Says @tummies.for.taft. “I can’t say it helped the cause, but it definitely addressed the problem.”

As the protest carried on into lunch, many tables were empty, a swarm of students gathered around lower lunch, giving speeches and encouraging this change of the dress code, to stop policing girls and to still respect Ms. Mcnab and Ms. Lopez, as they are not the ones who made the dress code, it was LAUSD.

The students finished this protest with a chant, “LAUSD hear us, LAUSD hear us!”