Volume 67, Issue 4  

SCW Students Decry Current Dress Code

by Alex Grange

Tuesday, October 22rd – Stern College for Women Student Council President Sharon Weiss along with other student leaders called together a meeting in light of recent objection to the SCW dress code.  Although the participants did not reach a definitive conclusion, the meeting signaled the first step of an ongoing process aimed at amending or perhaps even changing the school's dress code policy.

The impetus for the discussion began at the annual student leadership shabbaton, which was held on October 12th, as well as the upsurge in pants-wearing woman on campus.  The current dress code requires Stern students to wear long sleeves and a modest length skirt at all times and prohibits pants in any of the Stern buildings.  The main objection is the extension of this rule to include the campus at large, including the cafeteria, computer lab, and gym. 

The Stern student handbook insists that dress code is not a halachic matter but merely a policy created in order to foster a Torah environment.  As a letter from the Deans' Office confirmed, “The dress code at Stern College for Women was instituted as a school regulation, not as a formulation of halacha.  Its purpose is to ensure an atmosphere or milieu that is most conducive to who and what we are – a women’s college that provides Torah education and Jewish studies in addition to a program of general studies.”

This missive has recently led some students to neglect the imposed dress code.  They wonder how a non-halachic issue, as termed by the Deans’ Office, has the ability to create, or even foster, a Torah environment.  These students even went so far as to say that no college has or should have the right to dictate the proper fashion in which its students must dress.   

Some women, who were equally perplexed, believed that an amendment to the current dress code would suffice.  They see the problem not with the dress code per se, but with its enforcement.  They prefer a relaxed dress code to constant conflict between teachers and students.

For several hours the students debated the issue and by night’s end some consensus was achieved.  They decided that the current dress code is acceptable and should be maintained for Judaic classes, but that it should neither be applied nor enforced for the remainder of the day. 

“To have a strict code of dress which would be applicable throughout all Stern buildings, at all times, is too much for the students to handle,” commented one disgruntled SCW junior.  Thus, secular classes became the so-called “gray area” that needed to be dealt with immediately by the administration. 

Students claimed that, if the dress code were restricted to an enforceable period of time, more girls would ultimately comply with it, as opposed to the conventional disregard.

SCW junior Anat Barber concluded that the meeting “was a good opportunity for the girls to voice their opinions and for the student leaders to get a feel for what the [rest of the] students felt.” 

Student leaders now plan to meet with administrators, to affect some change in the near future.  According to Weiss, this meeting was the beginning of this process.  “Although this [discussion] may have created some controversy, I am glad students chose to address the issue because now it's being dealt with,” she said.

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