Utah School Edits Yearbook Photos To Make Girls Show Less Skin; Students Outraged

Several female students at a Utah high school have called administrators out for altering their yearbook pictures to make them look less "alluring."

The girls at Wasatch High School received their yearbooks to find their exposed skin digitally covered up, including longer sleeves and added necklines, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Wednesday. The photos were altered, without the students' knowledge, in an effort to shame them into looking more modest, students said.

One sophomore, Shelby Baum, had her V-neck shirt digitally edited with a higher neckline- along with her collarbone tattoo completely erased.

"My tattoo was a huge thing in my life," Baum, whose tattoo reads "I am enough the way I am," told the newspaper.

"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."

The Wasatch County students also said the school did not alter all of the photos the same way. Some girls had sleeves added to their tank tops, while others did not.

"I feel like they put names in a hat and pick and choose who," sophomore Rachel Russel told KSTU. "There were plenty of girls that were wearing thicker tank tops and half of them got edited and half of them didn't."

In one photo, the editor tried to change a girl's shirt but ended up removing a part of her hair. The hair was haphazardly drawn back on, making it look like she has a bush on her chest, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Wasatch County Superintendent Terry E. Shoemaker said they could have done a better job editing the yearbook, but did not apologize for doing it in the first place.

"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," Shoemaker said according to KSTU.

"I feel like they're trying to shame you out of your body," Baum told The Salt Lake Tribune.