The role of a professional organization can be to set codes of conduct, perhaps including professional dress.  The American Library Association does not have a dress code, but some researchers are trying to determine whether it should according to a “Annoyed Librarian” column at Library Journal.  The post links to the survey which is worth a look, including questions such as whether “name tags” would be assets and whether a dress code would “increase the perception and role of librarians” or “increase salaries across the profession.”  The survey also posits the ultimate question of whether the American Library Association should pay attention to the issue.   The views of “Annoyed Librarian” and the commentators to the column are decidedly negative.

Librarian dress, like academic dress, was once highly regularized.  Although perhaps he did not dress for his usual workday in a similar fashion, here is the portrait of Thomas James, the first Librarian at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford:

Today, many professions, employers and workers struggle with the concept of “dressing professionally.”   Whether there should be policies, especially if those policies can result in adverse employment actions, is a hotly debated question.  Because many librarians work in public libraries, schools, or universities, there are certainly First Amendment considerations.  If the dress code makes distinctions based on gender, that would raise a raft of concerns in both public and nonpublic libraries.

How do sociopaths dress?  Inappropriately?

That’s the implicit argument in a pseudonymous article by M.E. Thomas published in Psychology Today, “Confessions of a Sociopath,” adapted from her book by the same name.

To be sure, Thomas also implicitly argues that sociopaths make the best attorneys – – – and law professors – – – but dressing the part is not as easy as it might seem.  Thomas writes that when she at a law firm, supervised by a senior associated named “Jane,” Thomas exploited Jane’s insecurities.  Appropriating the usual “dress for success” model, Jane is described as putting “much effort into dressing appropriately,” although M.E. Thomas also describes Jane’s “pale skin mottled with age, poor diet, and middling hygiene”  as “evidence of a lifetime spent outside the social elite.”

Thomas contrasts herself: “I wore flip-flops and T-shirts at every semi-reasonable opportunity.”

Readers are to believe, it seems, that Thomas’s failure to dress for success is yet another manifestation of her manipulative and sociopathic personality.

Yet we should be wary of generalizing personality defects or even traits from preferences in attire.  Employers have long penalized workers, especially women, for their failures to “dress professionally” and have ascribed pathologies to employees’ failure to conform.  Flip-flops, even at a “semi-reasonable opportunity,” may not mean anything at all.

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The UK Guardian has the full story  ((h/t Sonia Lawrence), discussing

reports that Virgin Trains’ female staff have rejected their new uniform as it includes a “flimsy” and “revealing” red blouse that they believe would allow passengers to see any dark coloured underwear.

It also reports on the “solution”:

The firm’s business support director, Andy Cross, has reportedly responded to the concerns, writing on the Virgin staff website: “It’s important that our people feel comfortable and so we will be issuing vouchers in the next few days for ladies to buy undergarments to wear under their blouses.” Apparently the vouchers are to the value of £20 and the implementation of the new uniforms has been put back.

As the story says, employment dress codes are nothing new. 

Woman in Maid’s Uniform circa 1884

Chapter 4 of Dressing Constitutionally is entitled “Dressing Professionally.” 

Authorized by their departments, police officers are wearing their official uniforms while moonlighting for Exxon in response to a recent oil spill. Exxon’s Pegasus pipeline runs from Illinois to Texas, carrying more than 90,000 barrels of crude oil per day. On Friday, March 29, a leak in the pipeline flooded Mayflower, Arkansas, with thousands of gallons of oil, requiring the evacuation of 22 homes and wreaking havoc on the environment.

The oil giant’s response has prompted various ridicule, including Rachel Maddow’s jabs for its use of paper towels in the cleanup and Stephen Colbert’s satirical mockery of the fairly effective efforts to create “press blackout” (see for example, threats of arrests made to reporters).

Additionally, the cleanup effort raises a novel issue — as reported, Exxon now employs “at least 19 local law enforcement officers in uniform as security guards” during their off duty hours.

One official was reported saying that Exxon requires the off-duty officers to wear their police uniforms, while an Exxon spokesperson told reporters that “whether an officer wears the uniform is up to the individual.”

The Arkansas Sheriffs’ Association told reporters that if the officers’ department approves then “officers are allowed to wear their uniforms, even when off duty and working for a private company.”

Some argue, including local County Judge Allen Dodson who is helping to oversee the efforts, that police officers are performing similar services for Exxon as when on duty — providing protection and helping the community. Others, however, are concerned about potential conflicts of interest (including those threats of arrests made to reporters).

While officers may not have a First Amendment right to wear their uniforms when prohibited by the department, wearing a uniform imbued with state authority in service of a private company complicates matters, including raising questions of state action in light of any foreseeable constitutional claims.

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