North Carolina school can't require girls to wear skirts, federal court rules

A North Carolina charter school violated female students' constitutional rights by requiring them to wear skirts, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A majority of the full U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the dress code at Charter Day School in Leland violated female students' equal protection rights, siding with parents who had argued that their daughters were put at a disadvantage by the requirement.

Public schools have long been banned from enacting such mandates, but the court's majority concluded that public charter schools, since they receive public funds, are also "state actors" and are therefore subject to the Constitution's equal protection clause.