In Sugar Land, Texas, an assistant high school principal is being raked over the coals after he made sexist remarks, telling female students that their clothing choices were to blame for male students’ poor grades. According to Fusion, Clements High School assistant principal Phil Morgante told girls at an assembly not to wear crop tops or tight clothing for fear of distracting the boys.
An audio recording of the assistant principal’s comments surfaced on the Odyssey last Wednesday.
“Ladies, I know you’ve been working on your abs since the Olympics, right? But your shirts can’t be up here. It’s gotta cover the whole gut. So cover up,” he can be heard saying.
Toward the end of the recording, he adds, “Ladies, I blame you all for boys’ low grades because of tight clothing. If you have tight clothing on, we’re going to ask you to change.”
Even though the Fort Bend Independent School District (ISD) stated that the comments were a failed attempt at humor, several female students were upset with the blatant misogyny of Morgante’s remarks.
“It’s just kind of gross, because he teaches teenage girls,” student Piper Cotton told ABC 13. “Like they can blame us for them being distracted during school hours. He insisted rape culture [is] on us.”
Not only did Morgante’s comments blame the victim, saying high school girls are somehow responsible for boys’ lack of self-control, but they also potentially revealed deeper problem—that girls’ education in his school might be valued less than boys’ education.
According to Refinery 29, the Fort Bend ISD released a statement declaring that Morgante’s remarks were “inappropriate and offensive to students” and that, “following concerns expressed by students, the Clements principal took prompt action to address the comments and apologized to the student body.”
Morgante’s apology was not made public but the School District’s full statement can be found on Refinery 29.