Faculty Prepare to Vote on Dress Code

After nearly a year of strategizing, drafting and planning, senior and Student Council (StuCo) President Benj Cohen and Policy Committee Co-Heads and seniors Emily Lemmerman and Sachin Holdheim presented their proposal for a new dress code during Faculty Meetings this past Monday, May 4, 2015. Though they had hoped to hold a vote during the same meeting as well, the presentation and questions took more time than anticipated; voting is set for the next faculty meeting.

“A tie says: ‘I don’t do any physical labor,’ in the same way that pale white skin and smooth hands used to be taken as markers that a woman was a lady of leisure.”

Cohen said that they provided faculty with the history behind the proposal and its reasons for initiation all the way through the writing and development of its two options, Option 1 and Option 2. The rationale for changing the dress code is based on gender equity; the current binary dress code was deemed problematic for students who don’t identify as male or female or who may be in a transitional phase. It also requires faculty members to decide whether a student is male or female in order to assess their fulfillment of the dress code, which could cause undue stress for a student not certain of his or her gender identity.

Additionally, male students are considered to be held to a higher standard of dress than females under the current dress code, which, as StuCo wrote in the rationale, “perpetuate[s] negative gender stereotypes—specifically that girls are less professional than boys.”

The newly-proposed dress code comes with a list of “clean, neat and professional” attire, which includes dress shirts, turtlenecks, dresses, sweaters and ethnic attire. It also comes with a list of “always acceptable” items that are not required, “unacceptable” items that can’t be worn and general guidelines which address hemlines and the repair of clothes worn to required appointments.

After presenting Student Council with two options that follow the rationale, StuCo voted two thirds in favor of Option 1, a more relaxed dress code which, most notably, will no longer require ties for any students. Option 2, which was also outlined in the meeting without a StuCo endorsement, calls for more strict attire across the board.

Lemmerman said that the faculty seemed to be generally in favor of the proposal. “I think it was well-received,” she said, adding that “no one expressed any concern about the rationale, and there were many voices of support for it.”

According to faculty members in attendance and the presenters, most of the questions surrounded points of perceived lack of clarity, like definitions of blouses, polo shirts, whether or not sweatshirts are appropriate for class and the allowance of tank tops with straps more than two inches thick (tank tops of all types are banned in the current dress code).

Cohen said it was “hard to tell” exactly how the meeting went and impossible to know how the vote will go next week. But he remained confident and said he hoped the “faculty are open to the ideas we brought and the social issues that brought about this change.”

English instructor Kelly Flynn brought up one point after the presentation, arguing that requiring ties are a “classist” measure for the school to take, one that this dress code should remedy.

“A tie says: ‘I don’t do any physical labor,’ in the same way that pale white skin and smooth hands used to be taken as markers that a woman was a lady of leisure,” she said.

Flynn added that ties should be worn by both genders if they so wish, since “it seems bizarre and antiquated to enforce them across the board” just for boys.

Science instructor Elizabeth Stevens said that the ties suggest a seriousness of purpose that she enjoys about Exeter and that she will be “sad” to see them go. She explained that when she visits other schools of similar caliber that have more lax dress codes, the students are “more sloppily dressed. It makes a difference,” she said. Much of the discussion followed this worry: whether a tank top or lower cut dresses will distract from the learning process and educational atmosphere at Exeter.

But Stevens also acknowledged that “the current dress code is completely unfair,” and is in need of change. She suggested that there was general support for the rationale but there wasn’t enough time during Monday’s meeting to conclude the discussion with finality.

History instructor Michael Golay said that many skeptics of the changes were hesitant to vote in favor of the proposal because it felt as though they were “dumbing down the dress code a bit,” and there is reluctance surrounding that idea.

Golay also suggested that next week’s meeting might have a different tone; although many seemed supportive following the presentation, he said their voices and opinions might change once the Student Council representatives were no longer in the room.

Many faculty lauded Lemmerman, Holdheim and Cohen for their “articulate,” “thought-out” and “intelligent” presentation. The students were hopeful that a vote will take place soon. Signs show that it will; as Cohen said, “[faculty are] aware of the importance of this issue and seem to be in general support of the reasoning behind it.”