The Dallas Morning News reports:
A proposal to ban saggy pants in Dallas gained steam Wednesday as City Council members discussed how to deal with the popular clothing trend.
Several council members voiced support and asked the city attorney's office to research whether such a rule is enforceable.
Dallas school trustee Ron Price recommended the ban at Wednesday's council meeting, following through on a plan he announced Tuesday. Mr. Price wants the city to create an ordinance to allow police to cite people who wear their pants too low.
"Too low," he said, allows too much underwear to show....
The article doesn't mention any proposed language for the ordinance, likely since no ordinance has yet been formally proposed. But I wonder just how the city council would implement this, even if it decides it wants to. Would swimsuits qualify? Would there then be an exception for waterparks, public pools, and sidewalks on the way from the parking lot to the public pool? How about for people walking in their swim trunks from a private pool to their house, maybe stopping in their driveway to get something from their car? Kids, including teenagers, running through the sprinklers on a hot day?
Or would the ordinance try to distinguish boxers/briefs worn to swim from boxers/briefs worn for other purposes? How exactly? Based on the kind of fabric? Or is it that it's OK to wear a boxer or a brief if you're wearing it alone, OK if you're covering it up with pants, but not OK if it's halfway in between? Would there be an exception for people who are bending over sloppily, or people whose T-shirt rides up when they stretch for something, exposing an underwear waistband?
Is this really what the Dallas City Council should be doing?
Thanks to Marc Levin for the pointer.
UPDATE: Some commenters were confused, so I ought to clarify: The school trustee is the one suggesting the ordinance, but the ordinance is not limited to schools -- it would cover public places throughout the city. (I've revised the title to point to that more clearly.)
The Dallas City Council is right to recognize that clothing is not ethically neutral, and hopefully they will draft a standard that is clear and able to be defended in court.
Oh, for the days when school officials would have just sent the little (&&(*(*&*&_(*#@%0 home as dressed unsuitable for school.
But NOOOOOO. Talk like Prof. Volokh raises puts it all under lawyers. Lawyers who have no common sense. It was removed in law school. In its place was put a law book where every little part MUST be defined or they can't deside what to do.
Just a little rant. You must admit that law school teaches one to think like a lawyer. Much different from the rest of us. Not bad or anything but different.
Under the older system, the person with authority over the school would have been allowed to exercise his/her discretion without reliance on codified rules. The pricipal would just have said "Timmy/Kimmy, come here, you're going home and you're going to change and don't ever come to school wearing that again" and that would have been the end of it.
Now, this poor City Council is trying to legislate that power back into existence, which, for the reasons Professor Volokh points out, will then easily be challenged, which will lead future city councils to adopt ever more-specific regulations, etc.
When will we wake up and realize that such civil law concepts don't work, never have and never will?
A private employer can, for instance, tell people to be polite to each other, and can fire them for being rude. A statute barring people from being rude would be impermissibly vague. A private employer, for that matter, can and does discipline and fire people for making foolish decisions, writing badly, and so on; city ordinances embodying identical standards would be unconstitutionally vague, and would certainly be improperly vague.
Likewise with dress codes. First, a private school or a private employer are governing a lesser part of their employees' lives -- they don't have to worry much about teenagers running through sprinkers on the front lawn, or people walking from a public swimming pool. And, second, we rightly tolerate a lot more vagueness and individualized judgment calls when the matter involves private employment decision (or even government decisions when the government is just as an employer or even a K-12 educator) than when it involves criminal laws, even petty criminal ones.
Louisiana tried to ban low rise underwear a couple of years ago.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4963512/
Frankly, I am a little disappointed. I read Volokh.com expecting thorough legal analysis from brilliant minds, but Eugene didn't even bother to google "underwear law". And don't give me any of that "It's not my specialty" nonsense.
http://www.snopes.com/risque/homosex/sagging.asp
But "too low" pants fashions are not limited to the low slung male variety. Females often wear tight fitting pants that are specifically designed with an inseam of a very few inches--and a zipper of only 2 inches. I have seen panties creeping up not only from behind but up front. Certainly not criminal, but a bit silly. Meanwhile the poor girl is seen to contantly tug her jeans upward, to avoid revealing even another half inch, which would become obscene.