School officials admitted to the photoshopping, but claimed that students were warned by a sign at the photo session that their pictures could be edited.
A Heber City, Utah, public high school digitally altered female students’ yearbook photos to cover up skin and remove tattoos, all unbeknownst to the students themselves.
“I was shocked,” sophomore Kimberly Montoya told the Salt Lake City Tribune. Her sleeveless blouse appeared in the yearbook with short sleeves added.
And she was far from the only female student outraged by what seems like a clear case of modesty standards run amok.
“I feel like they’re shaming you, like you’re not enough, you’re not perfect,” sophomore Shelby Baum told the Houston Chronicle. School officials digitally removed Baum’s collarbone tattoo reading “I am enough the way I am.”
Baum even consulted the school’s dress code before getting the tattoo, according to The Washington Post.
“My tattoo was a huge thing in my life,” Baum told the Tribune. “I’ve come a long ways. My tattoo means a lot. It reminds me I am enough. For them to cover that up? They should inform me first. They never said anything to me.”
School officials admitted to the photoshopping, but claimed that students were warned by a sign at the photo session that their pictures could be edited.
“We only apologize in the sense that we want to be more consistent with what we’re trying to do in that sense we can help kids better prepare for their future by knowing how to dress appropriately for things,” Superintendent Terry E. Shoemaker told Fox News 13.
The students responded that they never saw any sign, and had a hard time taking this explanation seriously, given the haphazard way the school carried out the alterations. Students told the Tribune that the pictures seemed to be altered at random. Photos posted on Buzzfeed clearly show two students wearing nearly identical outfits, but only one had sleeves added to it.








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