High school students are ditching their bras for a cause. The “bracott,” which happened yesterday at Braden River High School and several nearby schools in Florida, was inspired by student Lizzy Martinez’s viral tweet about how her school’s administration made her put Band-Aids over her nipples. Martinez was wearing an oversized gray shirt when she was pulled out of class.
“They had me put on a second shirt and then stand up and, like, move and jump around to see how much my breasts moved. They told me to cross out my nipples [with bandages] and I just went to the bathroom and cried,” Martinez told BuzzFeed News directly after the incident. “I was mortified.”
Martinez’s mother, Kari Knop, was equally furious that her daughter was punished for going braless. “No child should be asked to stand up and move around and then given Band-Aids to place on their nipples,” Knop wrote in a Facebook post, adding that it even would have been more professional if she had been called and asked to bring her daughter another shirt.
Martinez’s bracott called for female students to clip their bras to their backpacks, and for male students to put Band-Aids on their shirts. None of these actions, including Martinez’s choice not to wear a bra, are technically against the district’s dress code, though Braden River has a reputataion for its strictly-enforced dress code.
“Knowing that she was dress-coded for not wearing a bra wasn’t surprising,” Sami Drouin, a classmate of Martinez’s, told The Bradenton Herald. “But after hearing what the administration made her do…I think that’s what really brought up this movement.”
At the time, a district spokesman has denied commenting to local news channels.
Photo via Twitter / @lizzymartineez
Top photo via Paramount Pictures / Mean Girls
More from BUST
The “Arm Vagina” Is Another Bullshit Body-Shaming Trend
This Instagram Account Shows Nipples Without Gender
