Strapless, spaghetti strap, off the shoulder, halter. What’s so criminal about these words? Well, the administration covers all of these styles of clothing in one fell swoop through a rule on page 20 of the student handbook stating that “all visible shirts, blouses or tops must cover the chest and both shoulders.” Now, the chest I understand, but what about my shoulders is so inappropriate or distracting? Have you ever in your life heard a person sneer, “Man, did you see the shoulders on that girl?” I haven’t, and I don’t really ever expect to hear that. The banning of bare shoulders is only one of the rules that doesn’t seem quite right. It’s a good example of how, while some of the new specifications within the dress code are just common sense, others simply make no sense. Always required to wear some type of footwear? Done. Not wearing see-through clothing? No problems there. Nothing that exposes undergarments? Check. But wait, shouldn’t that rule practically cover short skirts and shorts? Apparently, the administration doesn’t seem think so, since they are employing a “fingertip rule” to catch any “inappropriate area of the anatomy” that they may have missed with their initial rule. The fingertip rule states that any shorts, skirts, or dresses one wears must come to at least the fingertips of that person. This sort of rule is impractical and hard to enforce because arm length varies from person to person. Should the girls with particularly stubby arms be able to get away with shorter shorts? Should the girls cursed with longer limbs be forever condemned to capris? The downfall to this rule must have been realized by now! In no way do I want students to run through the hallways wearing barely rule-abiding clothes, but there is something to be said about the idea of letting students judge their own clothes. All in all, I believe the administration needs to give the student body a little more credit. After a certain age, students should be deemed mature enough and smart enough to dress themselves and figure out what they are not only comfortable in, but what the people around them are comfortable seeing on them. Students already have many responsibilites. Arriving at class on time, turning in homework, and even driving themselves to school. If a student can tell time, complete assignments, and even manuever through traffic, they should also be trusted to dress themselves in an acceptable way.