UChic Hot Topics: Should the government be able to enforce a dress code?

The government may soon be able to tell you what to wear- if you live in Lexington County of South Carolina, that is. The Lexington County Council is currently debating whether or not to issue a dress code to its employees.

The possible dress code excludes filp flops, athletic sneakers, spaghetti straps, skorts, shorts and even sweatshirts from the acceptable dress code list.

But is it really within the government’s bounds to play “What Not To Wear”? I don’t think so.

A dress code is something that should be established between an employer and his or her employees, not a set of rules established by a local governing body. Dress codes should be able to vary between jobs and making a countywide set of guidelines is not the way to go about this.

Dress codes should be decided by an employee’s department head and should solely be his or her decision. Not to mention, certain supervisors are simply not going to enforce the dress code because it isn’t their prerogative to do so. If a supervisor cares so much about their employee’s dress, then it should be up to him or her to enforce a dress code. It’s pointless to insist on passing something that will not be consistently enforced countywide.

Nothing about this is really planned out well. How would this even be enforced? What would be the ramifications of violating the dress code? None of this is specified. Hopefully, if guidelines like these are actually going to pass, questions like the ones posed above will be answered.

(Information from The State)


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