Inside Edition spoke to two high schoolers whose school digitally altered their yearbook photos to cover up more of their chests. "It's all based on the sexualization of young women’s bodies," one of the girls said.
Several students and their parents at one Florida high school are outraged after their yearbook photos were altered to cover up more of their chests.
Riley O’Keefe’s original photo had a black bar digitally added to the top of her shirt.
“I flipped through the yearbook and saw how many girls' chests were edited, and I got very upset, because it was so unnecessary. And not only that, the photoshopping job was so awful, that girls were getting bullied for it,” O’Keefe told Inside Edition.
Elizabeth McCurdy also had her photo digitally altered in a process Bartram Trail High School called “modesty editing.”
“I wear this shirt all the time. I wear it all the time. and I’ve never had an issue,” McCurdy told Inside Edition.
In total, 80 photos were deemed “inappropriate” by the school and digitally altered. All of them were of girls.
O’Keefe’s and McCurdy’s mothers said they could not believe it.
“As soon as I saw the photo of Liz and what it was like and how they photoshopped it, I was livid,” McCurdy’s stepmom Natasha Neuberger said.
“Riley and I, when we got the yearbook, we went back up to school and asked the assistant principal if she was in dress code, and she was in fact in dress code and her picture was still edited,” O’Keefe’s mom Stephanie Fabre said.
They say their school outside Jacksonville applied a double standard, because photos of the boys swim team, who were pictured wearing speedos, were not edited at all.
“To think about the fact that they're looking at every girls’ top half to see if anything’s showing is just weird to me. And I know they didn't do that with the boys,” McCurdy said.
The moms and daughters say that by covering their bodies in the yearbook, the wrong message was sent.
“It’s all based on the sexualization of young women’s bodies, and in general, that whole view needs to be taken away, especially because young men’s bodies are not seen the same way,” O’Keefe said.
The school district did offer refunds to any student who was photoshopped, with the stipulation that they would have to give their yearbooks back.
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