Black girls say D.C. school dress codes unfairly target them. Now they’re speaking up.

Adaku Onyeka-Crawford, director of educational equity and senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, said such dress code violations disrupt students’ learning and level of comfort in schools.

“If you’re constantly being scrutinized or concerned just because of how you look, that will affect how you learn in the classroom and it will affect whether or not you want to be there,” she said.