A historically black university in the Southern US is pushing students to wear business suits and clamping down on headwear as part of its new dress code.
Starting next month, students at Tuskegee University in Alabama will no longer be able to wear bonnets, du-rags or bedroom shoes in classrooms and cafeterias.
Students will also be required to wear a ‘business suit and proper shoes’ whenever they are on campus for a business meeting.
According to an email sent by university president Dr. Mark A. Brown, the updated code is to prepare students ‘with a solid foundation for the workforce’ after graduation.
‘Employers are less forgiving and too often presentation may overrule stellar preparation,’ Brown wrote.
If students do not comply with the dress code, they will be asked to adhere to the policy before being able to participate in class.
After multiple violations, students may have to leave the classroom.
The policies are being implemented as Tuskegee expects a 32-year new student enrollment high.
Tuskegee University in Alabama is clamping down on headwear inside the school’s classrooms and cafeterias as part of a new dress code
Students at the historically black school will not be allowed to wear du-rags or bonnets (Stock photo of an unrelated young man in a du-rag looking out a window)
A political science student at the university, Aliya Purnell, said she was concerned that the announcement felt ‘like a slippery slope of us devolving into conservatism.’
‘What’s stopping them from banning piercings?’ Purnell told What I’m Reading.
She accused the university of misplacing its focus, noting how the southern school had struggled with a campus housing shortage for its students.
‘Right now, we are in a housing crisis,’ Purnell told the outlet. ‘We are in a financial crisis. We just got done dealing with students having bats in their dorms.’
Purnell claimed she had rarely seen ‘students walking around campus with durags and bonnets,’ insisting that ‘everybody is dressed professionally and adequately.’
‘The only time you will ever see that is maybe on a Sunday, where one to two people go to the cafeteria for a quick brunch and go right back to their dorms,’ she said.
Durags and bonnets are generally worn by black people to maintain and style their hair.
Aerospace engineering junior Aiden Bass said that ‘most of the people’ he knew from the university were spending their summer at internships.
‘We’re all saying the way that we dress wasn’t stopping us from gaining these internships,’ Bass told the outlet.
Dr. Mark A. Brown, Tuskegee University’s president, said the dress code was being instituted to prepare students ‘with a solid foundation for the workforce’ after graduation
Bass claimed that the new dress code ‘should have never been publicized like this.’
‘Because it’s bringing this false interpretation that we don’t care about how we’re presenting ourselves in public and in professional environments,’ he added.
While making the announcement, Brown wrote that the historically black university was in ‘its Renaissance Era of transformation and renewal.’
On Saturday, Brown insisted that the dress code was part of a ‘maturation process.’
‘There’s a big difference in choosing not to wear a tie and knowing how to wear a tie,’ he told CNN.
In additions to bonnets and du-rags, the university’s dress code specified that hats, head scarves, caps, hoods, bandanas and sunglasses were also forbidden.
Further examples of clothing banned by Tuskegee included items that exposed the midriff, chest, cleavage, undergarments, chest, back or sides.
The new dress code was announced as Tuskegee expects a 32-year new student enrollment high
Students were advised against wearing ‘excessively short shorts’ and urged to not fashion long t-shirts as dresses.
On top of the dress code, faculty are allowed to establish additional policies for laboratories, internships and presentations.
Tuskegee is also taking aim at cellphones in classrooms, prohibiting the devices from being used in class to eliminate distractions.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Tuskegee University for further comment.
