Dress-Code Drama

By Melissa August, Jeffrey Kluger, Ellin Martens, Benjamin Nugent, Sora Song and Heather Won Tesoriero

This back-to-school season, teenagers are pining for racy duds. And why not? It's all they see in the media. A JC PENNEY AD, in which a mom helps her daughter yank down her jeans to show more midriff, was itself yanked after parental complaints. Other fronts in the dress-code war:

MINISKIRTS An Old Navy ad says they're back. But at an Indianapolis, Ind., school, skirts have to be as long as fingertips can reach with arms held by the side

D0-RAGS A must for lads with hip-hop on their headphones, but a Dallas high school principal says kids must have "nothing on their heads"

SAGGING PANTS "Thong Song" singer Sisqo, like many boys, lets his undies breathe. "Sagging is something that we would say is inappropriate," says a Portland, Ore., principal

BARE MIDRIFFS Teen pop lark Christina Aguilera may not be a popular girl among Waterbury, Conn., school officials, who have demanded students keep their navels to themselves