By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
A recent sign in front of the business management department building of Hanyang University has stirred controversy among students. The sign reads, ``Those in slippers, shorts or training pants should not enter.''
There is no security guard that actually blocks the students wearing such items from entering the building, but the student association protested against the school's new regulation, saying that it is excessive.
``This is a democratic country and when the school wants to make a new regulation, the school should ask for the students' opinions but the school did not,'' the association said in an announcement.
``If the school wants to encourage students to wear certain styles of clothes, then they should have held a campaign for voluntary participation,'' it said.
The school explained that the dress code to wear ``neat and clean outfits'' was designed to encourage students to have a sense of professionalism toward each other.
``As the temperature goes up, more and more students are wearing slippers in the classrooms. Some even wear training pants, which are all too informal,'' Sohn Tae-won, dean of the department, said.
``The school is a very public place and we thought we need a rule to respect the public. Though the sign seems oppressive, everybody knows that it is only a gesture, and that we really do not have a way to deal with offenders,'' he added.
Still, students complain that fashion should not be judged to be appropriate or not by others on the campus.
``As long as one does not harm others, he or she has the right to wear whatever they want. That is called `respecting diversity','' a student wrote on the school's Web site.
He said that school should be a TPO (time, place and occasion) free place. ``Why do we have to tell grown-up students what to wear on campus, when it should be a place full of personalities and liberty?'' he asked.
The students association openly asked the school to explain the reason for the sudden dress code regulation.