Does Morehouse College’s Dress Code Discriminate Against Gay Students?

I recently had the pleasure of rereading Nella Larsen’s novella Quicksand. Published in 1927, Quicksand critiques black college life via a fictional institution named Naxos. One of protagonist Helga Crane’s main issues with Naxos is its dress code. The narrator explains:

“Clothes had been one of her difficulties in Naxos.  …the hawk eyes of dean and matrons had detected the subtle difference from their own irreproachably conventional garments. Too, they felt that the colors were queer; dark purples, royal blues, rich greens...”

Little did Nella Larsen know that in the next century, black colleges would continue to impose rigid dress codes targeting “queer” fashions. Just Monday, Vibe magazine published a feature about the historically black and male Morehouse College’s ban on traditionally female dress such as purses, pumps and tunics. Officials at the Atlanta school say that such fashions aren’t fitting of a Morehouse man, but what of the Morehouse students with fluid gender identities who express themselves by wearing both men’s and women’s clothing — often all at the same time?

Some of you are thinking that if such students want to embrace androgyny, they can do so at another school. Not all of the students in question, however, arrived at Morehouse wearing gender-bending clothing. Take Phillip Hudson, who says he enrolled at Morehouse with the intention of appearing as masculine as possible. But classmates immediately saw through his guise, laughing at him and calling him “f____t.”  Hudson says from that point on, he decided to be true to himself.

“There was no hiding that I was not masculine,” Hudson told Vibe. Moreover, Hudson claims that although Morehouse’s appropriate attire policy, which took effect last year, also takes aim at students who wear sagging pants and do-rags, officials don’t target those offenders as aggressively as they do the androgynous men on campus. The administration denies this claim. But school officials don’t deny that they consider feminine dress inappropriate.

William Bynum Jr., vice president of Student Services at Morehouse, remarked to Vibe:

“We respect the identity and choices of all young men at Morehouse. However, the Morehouse leadership development model sets a certain standard of how we expect young men to dress...”

This statement is contradictory and, as a result, seemingly insincere. If the Morehouse administration really does respect the identity and choices of all students, it would respect that some members of its gay community express their identities by wearing “female” attire. And when I say “some members,” I’m actually only referring to a handful of Morehouse students. Administrators say that it’s just this scant amount of students who engage in cross-dressing. Accordingly, they say that the media is making a mountain out of a molehill by focusing on this aspect of the school’s appropriate attire policy. But if only five or so students choose to wear gender-bending clothing, why pass a policy specifically aimed at inhibiting how they dress? It’s akin to a country such as France choosing to put its time and resources in creating a law banning the burqa when only a fraction of the Muslim community wears the garment. Just as the French anti-burqa law raised concerns that France was xenophobic, the Morehouse dress policy raises concerns that its administration is homophobic.

As one gay Morehouse student told Vibe, “In some ways, it’s like it’s okay to be gay. But not that gay.”

Phillip Hudson has gotten the message. He’s transferring to a large Florida university where he doubts his cross-dressing will raise eyebrows. Unfortunately Hudson’s not alone. Similar students have also left Morehouse. If their departure isn’t proof that the school dress code creates a hostile climate for the “queer” community on campus, what is?

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