A single standard removes the judgement that makes codes unfair

The argument

Proponents of this position hold that the objection people actually have to school dress codes is not the existence of a rule but the discretion inside it. A code written in terms such as modest, appropriate or distracting hands the decision to whoever is applying it on the day, and a discretionary judgement about appearance, applied to adolescents, reliably produces an uneven result. The complaint that codes fall on girls is, on this account, a complaint about discretion rather than about dress codes as such, since it is the vague terms that leave room for the pattern to form. The remedy proposed is a single standard stated identically for every student. The code should describe garments rather than bodies, and should be written so that compliance is the same question for everyone: the same list of permitted items, the same rules on logos and slogans, the same requirements for safety in practical lessons, with nothing that depends on how a particular student happens to fill a particular garment. Proponents argue that a rule of this kind can be applied without any judgement of appearance at all, which is exactly what removes the unfairness. The position also claims the practical advantages of a code without the costs its critics describe. Students know in advance what they may wear and cannot be surprised by a ruling, staff are not asked to assess anyone's body, and a disputed decision can be checked against the text rather than argued over. Proponents conclude that abolishing codes gives up these benefits unnecessarily, since the fault the critics have identified is a fault in drafting, and a code drafted to apply equally is available to any school that wants one.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics on both sides find this unsatisfying. Those who oppose codes argue that an identical standard is not in fact available, because garments are made, sold and worn differently for different students, so a list of permitted items either becomes long and detailed again or quietly reproduces the old pattern under new wording. Those who want stricter codes argue the opposite, that a rule which cannot refer to how a garment is worn will fail at exactly the cases it was written for, since the dispute was always about fit rather than about the name of the item. The position may therefore be stable only in statement.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Critics hold that vague terms are not essential to codes, so the discretion identified is a drafting fault rather than something to build a position on. [Rejecting P2] Uneven results also follow from uneven enforcement of precise rules, so precision alone does not deliver the fairness claimed. [Rejecting P3] Garments are made, sold and worn differently for different students, so a list of permitted items either grows long and detailed again or reproduces the old pattern under new wording. [Rejecting C] A rule that cannot refer to how a garment is worn will fail at the cases codes are written for, leaving the single standard stable only in statement.