Dress Code

The following is a letter written by an irate mother, namely me, to the principal of my daughter’s high school:

Dear Mr. Smith,

I am writing to inform you that her father and I have been extremely worried for some time about conditions that exist in our daughter’s school.

I can remember, way back in September, when she first told me about her and her friends’ dissatisfaction with conditions at school. She said that for years you’ve made all the boys wear grey slacks and white shirts and ties and the red school sweater with the pink and purple stripes on the sleeve. The girls have to wear tunics, white blouses and sensible black shoes and they all look alike.

She complained about how stifling these dress restrictions were to their psyches, and how repressing they were to their individuality and creativity. I pointed out that I thought proper dress showed a certain amount of respect for the school, and that a neat and tidy appearance helped promote an orderly mind.

But she explained to me how, throughout history, whenever a repressive regime wanted to stifle individual liberty, they put everybody into identical uniforms. She told me all about the Cossacks, the Roman Legions, the Storm Troopers and even the Coldstream Guards, and I was impressed with her logic.

She insisted that in order to ensure complete freedom of individuality, so that the creative talents of each and every student can blossom and flower without hindrance, the kids must be allowed to dress as they please at school. In this way, individual liberty will be preserved, and we will have taken another step forward in our painful progress toward freedom for all.

A group of us parents, who agreed with the kids, got together at a Home and School meeting and proposed a resolution to drop the dress code, which passed unanimously. The children were each allowed to dress invidually, exactly as they pleased.

So I ask you, what went wrong? I looked out my kitchen window yesterday at the children going to school, and they were all wearing identical blue jeans frayed at the bottom and torn at the knees, polo shirts ripped under the arms, dirty sneakers and long stringy hair. Not only do all the girls still look exactly alike, but now they even look like all the boys!

Tell me, Mr. Smith, this is progress?