If it was genuinely an advantage, don’t you think all the teams would have uniforms like this? She’s been competing in it for three years, so how does it suddenly become a problem? It’s not even clear that there’s anything about her outfit that’s in violation of any written rules.
A lot of things don’t add up here; some of it may be due to poor reporting. But look at this: “The custom-made, one-piece blue and orange unitard covers her head, arms, torso and legs. Over the unitard, she wears the same orange and blue T-shirt and shorts as her teammates.” ORANGE AND BLUE is what the whole team wears.
Then: “But meet director Tom Rogers said Kelly’s uniform violated rules of the National Federation of State High School Associations, which sanctioned the event. Uniforms are required to be “a single-solid color and unadorned, except for a single school name or insignia no more than 2 1/4 inches,” he said. SINGLE SOLID COLOR, so how come the whole team isn’t in violation?
Continuing: “Rogers said he knew Kelly was wearing the uniform for religious reasons and that he offered her several options to conform to the rules while still respecting her faith, including placing a plain T-shirt over her unitard and then wearing her team uniform over it.” How does placing a “plain” T-shirt over the unitard and then the team shirt and shorts over that, make her outfit any closer to what Rogers described as the requirements? The plain T-shirt certainly wouldn’t cover the unitard (which runs from the top of her head to her ankles and out to her wrists!) and if her team shirt and shorts go OVER the plain T-shirt, then the T-shirt wouldn’t be covering any non-conforming aspects of the team shirt and shorts either. And it certainly would make her even warmer, so that aspect of your point is clearly not what this meet director was concerned about.
Why doesn’t she wear a solid colored unitard to match the color of her skin?