All HHS Staff Members Can Enforce Dress Code, Says Council – Council Update (December 20, 2017)

Council began this week’s meeting with the weekly committee reports. These were followed by the first major input of the meeting. This was when Assistant Moderator Jasper Meyer read Mr. Campbell’s letter regarding his veto of the Cell Phone Motion to Council. In the letter, as previously reported, Mr. Campbell wrote that he believes that staff need to be able to preemptively confiscate phones in some situations, and that exam security needs to be further emphasized in the motion. The principal also added that he likes the motion and that he wants to try to avoid preemptive confiscation of phones. This was then followed by the major issue of the meeting, which was the Dress Code Motion.

Since belly buttons had been struck from the motion, Moderator Aisling Kelly started the debate by asking members to not talk about belly buttons. Junior Representative Elizabeth Napier then said that on behalf of Curricular Committee, who had been assigned to discussing the motion, that more input on the enforcement section of the motion was needed for the motion to be ready to pass.

Assistant Moderator Jasper Meyer then made a motion to amend the Dress Code so that any staff member (and not just the Dean of Students) could enforce the Dress Code. Meyer emphasized that it should be staff members’ responsibility to enforce the motion. Senior Representative Perrin Milliken followed this up by probing about what the actual punishment would be for breaking the Dress Code. It was a question that went largely unanswered.

In response to the amendment Meyer brought, many students asked if teachers would be comfortable enforcing the code. Staff Representative Mr. Gentine answered by saying that he would enforce it and that if he ever felt uncomfortable he would ask a female coworker to help him enforce it. Staff Representative Mrs. Ceplikas reiterated this by saying that the code is enforceable.

  Staff Representative Ms. Good put forth the idea that Council might create sentences that are not-shaming and would make clear to students that they need to change clothing. This would ensure teachers have a standard way of approaching students breaking the Dress Code.

After all this discussion about enforcement, the motion that Ass. Mod. Meyer proposed did pass, meaning that it would be staff members’ responsibility to enforce the Dress Code. This was followed by some discussion regarding specific instances which the Dress Code doesn’t specifically address, to which Senior Rep. Perrin Milliken said that this was the best Dress Code that Council could write and that they should not bother talking about exceptions that might occur once every few years.