School tells braless pupil: 'Cover nipples with plasters'

‘I felt so humiliated’

A student who decided not to wear a bra to school said she was left "humiliated" when she was allegedly asked to cover her nipples with plasters so as not be a “distraction”.

Lizzy Martinez, 17, said she was pulled out of class at Braden River High School in Florida earlier this week, when one of her teachers contacted the school’s main office with a query.

“I’m sitting in the office wondering: ‘What did I do?’, kind of scared, I got like really anxious,” she told the Bradenton Herald.

After the door to the office was closed for privacy, Ms Martinez was questioned by dean of students Violeta Velazquez over whether she was wearing a bra.

When she answered that she was not, she was then asked to explain why.

“I felt just like it was really obtrusive, like, why would you ask me that?” she said.

When Ms Martinez was told that her choice to go braless was distracting other students in her class, she said she was astonished.

“I literally said: ‘Are you joking?’” she explained.

Ms Martinez was told to put a t-shirt on underneath her shirt in an attempt to constrict her breasts.

At this point, Ms Martinez said that she was already crying. “I felt so humiliated,” she said.

When Ms Martinez returned to the office wearing the t-shirt underneath her shirt, she was asked to move around so that Ms Velazquez could determine whether her breasts were less noticeable.

Seemingly coming to the conclusion that the t-shirt had not done the trick, Ms Martinez was instructed to go to the school clinic where she was then handed four plasters to conceal her nipples.

“I decided not to wear a bra today and got pulled out of class bc [because] one of my teachers complained that it was a ‘distraction to boys in my class,’” Ms Martinez wrote on Twitter.

“My school basically told me that boys’ education is far more important than mine and I should be ashamed of my body.”

She then tweeted her school Twitter account directly, telling the academic institution to stop sexualising her body.

The next day, Ms Martinez posted a screenshot that showed that the Braden River High School Twitter account had blocked her.

In a statement given to the Bradenton Herald, the school district’s general counsel, Mitchell Teitelbaum, addressed the issue.

“This matter was brought to the attention of the Superintendent’s Office for review,” he said. “It is undisputed that this matter should have been handled differently at the school level and corrective measures have been taken to prevent a recurrence in the way these matters will be addressed in the future.”