Do you not have students complaining about dress codes in your country? It was the typical individualist dreck: “kids have a right to dress like slobs/express their inner selves and schools shouldn’t try to stop them.” It was not a protest to reinforce existing community standards against an aberrant decision.

> Do you not have students complaining about dress codes in your country?

What does that have to do with anything? Some dress codes are truly stupid, to the point they are literally ignored by both teachers and students. Which is just our chosen way to deal with it, usually. When there is clash, dress code violation is typically seen as something minor, so no reason to protest when you can kinda ignore it.

Frankly, organizing protest is so much work, that kids in your story come across as active people who take governance seriously.

I went to an extremely conservative school in an extremely conservative school district. We also had protests over dress codes, and it wasn't about the "right to dress like slobs." It was entirely about reinforcing existing community standards (i.e., freedom of expression through clothing) against an aberrant decision (a district-mandated dress code imposed by a newly-elected slate of neo-conservatives).