What not to wear at Morehouse...

Moving Beyond Black Male Respectability:
Notes on Morehouse College's Dress Code Policy

Like many graduate students, I suffer from a serious "cant-get-any-work-done-in-my-apartment" syndrome. Try as I may, each time I sit down to write an article or dissertation chapter, I find myself having to venture out of my apartment and into a more open, public setting (libraries or cafes work well for me).
So there was nothing unusual about my decision to pack up my laptop today and head over to Morehouse College's Jazzmen Café to work on my dissertation amidst a comfortable climate of Pumpkin Lattes and innocently-arrogant Kappa Alpha Psi undergraduates. At 6 o'clock, after I had managed to spend three hours working, I decided to grab a bite to eat at Morehouse's Cafeteria. As I paid my $6 Non-Morehouse student fee to enter the cafeteria, I was told that in order to enter I would need to remove my red, fitted-baseball cap. "Uhm...ok" I thought to myself. It seemed a bit strange to me that baseball hats would be prohibited in a stinky, old cafeteria lounge, but hey, then again this was Morehouse College, an institution hell-bent on promoting images of black middle class respectability and propriety.

I didn't think anything of the no-red-fitted-caps-in-the-cafeteria policy until I glanced over at a headline from the October 6th Issue of The Maroon Tiger (Morehouse's 84 year old student newspaper). "Administration Announces New Attire Policy."

Immediately, I dropped my spoon in the stale cafeteria macaroni.

The administration's new policy (which goes into effect this month) is spear-headed by Morehouse's new President, Dr. Robert Michael Franklin Jr.

Here is a verbatim copy of the policy. It's almost too-good to be true.

Morehouse College Appropriate Attire Policy
October 2009

Published in The Maroon Tiger

It is our expectation that students who select Morehouse do so because of the College's outstanding legacy of producing leaders. On the campus and at College-sponsored events and activities, students at Morehouse College will be expected to dress neatly and appropriately at all times.

Students who choose not to abide by this policy will be denied admission into class and various functions and services of the College if their manner of attire is inappropriate. Examples of inappropriate attire and/or appearance include but are not limited to:

1. No caps, do-rags and/or hoods in classrooms, the cafeteria, or other indoor venues. This policy item does not apply to headgear considered as a part of religious or cultural dress.

2. Sun glasses or "shades" are not to be work in class or at formal programs, unless medical documentation is provided to support use.

3. Decorative orthodontic appliances (e.g. "grillz") be they permanent or removable, shall not be worn on the campus or at College-sponsored events.

4. Jeans at major programs such as, Opening Convocation, Commencement, Founder's Day or other programs dictating professional, business casual attire, semi-formal or formal attire.

5. Clothing with derogatory, offense and/or lewd messages either in words or pictures.

6. Top and bottom coverings should be work at all times. No bare feet in public venues.

7. No sagging--the wearing of one's pants or shorts low enough to reveal undergarments or secondary layers of clothing.

8. Pajamas, shall not be worn while in public or in common areas of the College.

9. No wearing of clothing associated with women's garb (dresses, tops, tunics, purses, pumps, etc.) on the Morehouse campus or at College-sponsored events.

10. Additional dress regulations may be imposed upon students participating in certain extracurricular activities that are sponsored or organized by the College (e.g. athletic teams, the band, Glee Club, etc).

11. The college reserves the right to modify this policy as deemed appropriate.
*All administrative, faculty, students and support staff members are asked to assist in enforcing this policy and may report disregard or violations to the Office of Student Conduct. "

Wait a second: tell me this doesn't really say no "pumps" or "purses" at college sponsored events? And wait, are they really trying to ban grillz? What's up Morehouse?

I must be missing something. Is there some kind of growing, critical mass of high-heel wearing, gold-tooth rockin' boys threatening to take over the campus? (if so, Big Up).

Morehouse: I love you, but I'm going to need you to rethink this. Instead of prohibiting baggy jeans and non-normative gender attire, perhaps you might want to celebrate the fact that there is such a rich plurality of black styles and expressive self-fashionings found among Morehouse's all-male population. And less we forget, Morehouse is still a liberal arts college, right? Whatever happened to the idea of letting young undergraduate men "find themselves"--even if that means letting them sag their jeans a little bit or even throwing on a little black nail polish every now and then.

As an African American man who has deep sense of admiration for Morehouse's legacy (confession: I was very close to choosing Morehouse over NYU for college), I'm disturbed. This "proper attire" policy not only obviously contains an egregiously heterosexist bias, it also contains a deeply problematic class-politics.

Let's be real, Morehouse Pres: are we afraid that if these Morehouse boys wear baggy jeans, they might look a little too much like the local, poor community of the Castleberry section of Atlanta (where Morehouse is located)?

This is nuts. I was very proud of the college's recent decision to fire an employee who sent out homophobic emails to Morehouse's staff. Lets keep the ball rolling in that direction and not turn our backs on all those Durag-wearing, Timbs and Jeans rockin, Heels and Pumps-prone undergraduates we know you have all over your campus.

How do you feel about the policy? Am I just trippin'?

Frank Leon Roberts is a lecturer in the program in Gender and Sexuality Studies at New York University.