Disapproval of Hackley’s dress code is nothing new; students and teachers can be heard alternatively describing it as too lenient, too strict, or just confusing. This year, with the goal of accurately enforcing the existing code, teachers were given instructions to detain students who did not fit the criteria for school appropriate attire. With dress code discipline at an all-time high, and students often unclear on what constitutes a violation, many have questioned the validity of the rules themselves. The current dress code is too vague and thus too difficult to enforce.

The aim of a dress code, in general, is to provide an air of professionalism and respect amongst a student body. In theory, it eliminates the need to make subjective decisions about what outfits are appropriate or not, and makes judgment of appropriate dress a more exact science. In practice, however, the Hackley dress code is as vague as simply making arbitrary decisions about what is appropriate, and this is especially true for the part of the code that applies to girls.

While students are told to err on the side of caution, there is no specific boundary for “low cut,” and many students are unsure of what exactly falls within the spectrum of appropriate attire, especially within the girls’ code. While some concessions do have to be made for the sake of decency, the seemingly subjective set of rules places strain on students to interpret the rules themselves, and thus defeats the dress code’s purpose of eliminating confusion about what is appropriate. While some clothing standards are necessary to maintain an educationally stimulative environment, seemingly random distinctions are often made; for example, many sweaters have flopped collars, which are alternatively allowed and disallowed. Unclear rules are impossible to enforce, and thus the code is ineffective in its purpose of providing clarity in what is appropriate to wear.

And while a line must be drawn somewhere, it should fall not upon a subset of the administration, but on the school’s population as a whole to decide the boundaries; such dialogue between teachers and students at Riverdale led to a compromise in which issues of inappropriate dress are discussed individually with a dean. According to Head of Upper School at Riverdale Dr. Kelley Nicholson-Flynn, “Such conversations are rare.” This implies that students can generally police themselves, and the administration rarely finds any issue with the choices that the students make. These rare conversations directly correlate with Riverdale’s far more lenient dress code; Dr. Nicholson-Flynn said, “The topic of [appropriate vs. inappropriate dress] is not a major discussion at Riverdale. Although allowance is made for personal taste, students’ attire is required to be neat and clean and appropriate for the occasion of being at school.” When students are given the freedom to decide for themselves what is and what is not appropriate, it seems that they make responsible choices while retaining their right to expression.

The dress code also prevents, in many ways, the individual self-expression that the Hackley community is so supportive of in most other facets of school life, like the Coffee House. Freedom of dress allows students to feel comfortable in school, both physically and mentally, while maintaining the expectation of a true academic environment. Horace Mann, Dalton, and Fieldston have all adopted similarly lenient dress codes. According to Dr. Nicholson-Flynn, “While I tend to prefer more professional attire, I would strongly defend students’ right for self-expression. However, this right reaches a limit when it has a significant effect on others in the community. We would begin by educating students about those effects if we believed a student made a poor choice.”

Once dialogue is opened, and students no longer face the pressure to adhere to rules they often do not fully understand. One Hackley senior, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “I think the stress of wondering whether the outfit that I spent my money on will be acceptable to the school’s standards is way more distracting than any short skirt could ever be.”

It is true that teachers and deans have acknowledged these problems and taken steps to ensure that students can understand the dress code. According to sophomore dean David Sykes, “I do agree and I think this year we’ve made some improvements in the code and enforcement as far as making it more clear and transparent to students.”

According to Christopher Arnold, Hackley Dean of Students, “I think the part of the dress code that’s most frustrating for students, and teachers too, is the challenge to be consistent in places in the dress code where we try to accommodate student choice, like footwear and solid-color sweatshirts.” The efforts that have been made to adjust the dress code (which Mr. Arnold says has been in effect in a similar form since his beginning at Hackley in 1994), while well-intentioned, may have the unintended consequence of creating further ambiguity in the code and its enforcement.

The dress code itself is simply too vague to police in any reasonable way. While this ambiguity may have stemmed from efforts to relax the dress code for students, it makes its consistent enforcement almost impossible. This year, with such emphasis placed on enforcement of existing rules (by student vote), the inefficiencies have been brought to the forefront of the student consciousness: senior Sophia Bannister said that what most concerns her is “the tactic of shame and humiliation that many teachers have adapted.” While this is of course not intentional, girls can be judged harshly, and all while they generally make an earnest effort to be in dress code. Teachers may not mean to embarrass or offend students, but the enforcement of an unclear and seemingly inconsistent dress code places tremendous stress on both parties.

Finally, for girls, modern fashion makes it difficult to adhere to Hackley’s standards of dress. Many students report difficulty in finding skirts or dresses that subscribe to the school’s three-inches-above-the-knee requirement. While it is possible to find such clothing, it does greatly limit students’ options in terms of style, and thus self-expression. In addition, with the more limited options available to girls, their families may be forced to buy them school clothes that they would prefer not to wear outside of school, thus increasing spending so that girls may dress appropriately for both occasions. Finally, without taking into account the money that families must pay to clothe their children in outfits they will likely not wear outside of school, students, based purely on visual cues, become more representative of a Hackley identity than their own.

The dress code, for all of its merits in creating a professional atmosphere and attempting to reduce inappropriate dress code, is simply unfeasible as is. A loosening of the code, perhaps in the elimination of seemingly trivial requirements like collars and the ban on logos, which have no bearing as far as inappropriate exposure is concerned, would provide students with an avenue of self-expression, more comfort in the classroom, reduce anxiety over unclear rules, and generally provide a more lax (read: less anxiety), positive environment in the hallways. Even a uniform would provide an improvement over the current code; at least students would face no pressure to decide for themselves which outfit would be tolerated on what day. Hackley’s dress code and its enforcement need to be examined closely, and an open dialogue would go a long way to facilitate that.