Fashion police? Florida and Arkansas have banned sagging pants in schools. Does the government have a right to tell you what to wear?

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: NATIONAL

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Joshua Simpkins, a 16-year-old sophomore at Jones High School in Orlando, Florida, doesn't think that what he wears should be any of the government's business.

"We bought our clothes the way we wanted them," he told Reuters news service recently. "It doesn't matter how you dress. You come to school to learn."

But starting this year, Simpkins and thousands of other students in several states have one less style option available to them when they're in school: no sagging pants.

Both Florida and Arkansas have passed laws prohibiting the controversial fashion in schools. The bans took effect when classes started this year, meaning no more loose belts and pants that sag below the waist, revealing a few inches of boxer shorts--or more.

Some communities have gone even further. Towns in South Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and suburban Chicago have all passed blanket bans on wearing saggy pants anywhere in public. Lawmakers in Louisiana and Virginia tried, and failed, to pass statewide bans. In May, the public bus system in Fort Worth, Texas, announced that its drivers would turn away passengers who refused to pull up their pants.

Criminal vs. Objectionable

When fashion moves from being merely objectionable to illegal, it raises constitutional questions about freedom of expression: Can the government really tell you what to wear?

The American Civil Liberties Union doesn't think so.

"If people want to dress like fools, that's up to them," says Courtney Bowie of the ACLU. "Why is it being criminalized?"

Over the last few years, local laws banning saggy pants were rescinded in both Louisiana and Michigan after local ACLU chapters expressed concern about the laws' constitutionality. And in 2009, a law banning saggy pants in Riviera Beach, Florida, was declared unconstitutional by a county judge.

But advocates of the laws continue to push for them, saying these measures are about enforcing public decency. People shouldn't have to see other people's underwear--or even exposed rear ends--as they walk down the street, they say.

Schools in particular argue that they have a duty to teach what kind of behavior is acceptable and what's not if students are going to be prepared to enter the workforce.

Gary Siplin, the state senator behind Florida's saggy-pants ban in schools, says that was his primary concern.

"My mama always taught me: The first impression is a lasting impression," Siplin explains. "In the long haul, these students will not...