Moorehouse College implements a dress code, take a look below:

www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/10/17/nr.morehouse.dress.code.cnn?iref=videosearch”>

My thoughts: the institution has the right to establish whatever standards for attire it chooses. Students have the right to comply, or choose to attend another school.

Policy isn’t the main issue here. The issues are:
1) students lack of understanding of the relationship between personal presentation and respect for an institution they are part of, who it represents, and what it stands for. Adolescent/young adults too often have a focus on “me” as opposed to the bigger picture and things outside themselves.

2) students failure to recognize and acknowledge that there exists a professional standard of attire, decorum, and conduct that should be met at some basic level. Is it due to lack of exposure to professional attire, limited examples of appropriate attire?? Perhaps for some, and hence Visible Men and other professional mentoring organizations along with our partners in the media have to get to work.

I applaud Morehouse for identifying this as an issue and for making a clear statement that higher standards are called for.

The NBA established a dress code a couple of years ago and there were initially a lot of claims of racism, squashing of black culture,and fear of white financial backlash against black expression. I didn’t see it that way. I just felt that the NBA wanted their professionals to dress professionally.