Censoring yearbook cleavage photos is a huge step backward

The girls of Bartram Trail High School and their parents are right to be outraged -- as we all should be, on their behalf and on behalf of women and girls everywhere, writes Peggy Drexler. The over-the-top editing of their photos represents a policing of their bodies at a time when they and their male peers should be learning to respect them instead of viewing them as a lure and a liability.

In crude digital editing, black bars or cut-and-paste swatches of the teens' attire were clumsily patched across the chests of dozens of girls pictured in the Bartram Trail High School yearbook. This was apparently done to prevent even the possibility of their showing cleavage. The students found out about these unreasonable changes -- reportedly made by a staffer serving as yearbook coordinator -- when the books were released this week and they searched out their photos.