In 2021, dozens of female students at Bartram Trail High School in St. Johns County, Fla., had their yearbook photos edited to have their cleavage removed, leading to a public outcry and lots of media coverage.

“Reporter Ben Ryan of Action News Jax out of Jacksonville investigated the story and shared examples of some before and after photos on Twitter, explaining that the before photos were deemed “inappropriate” by the school.”

The public high school noted on its website that yearbook photos “must be consistent with the St. Johns County School District Student Code of Conduct or may be digitally adjusted.”

This discipline seemed to happen only to girls, according to media and parent stories.

Sad to say, I saw this tricky war on low necklines in a report we published on “Building Human Capital.” Stock art had to be Victorianized.

It’s amazing what offends the new prudes. And I’m guessing it still happens frequently.

And as I noted in Rich and Musty: Archiving “Old Prints, I fancied myself an “artist” of a sort and the old print editions of the journal as minor “masterpieces” … this one my Sgt. Pepper’s … that one my London Calling … and so on. Other editions marked the way I told time. There was the edition when my first child was born … then the “Emotional Rescue” edition when I took a vacation in Ireland (and some colleagues took advantage of my being away to airbrush out the UConn logo on a cover photo of students misbehaving) …”