A ban on sweatpants at a school in Wermelskirchen near Remscheid recently caused waves. The school said on Wednesday that it wanted to maintain the dress code "despite criticism in the media". The pupils should be encouraged to wear clothes that do not tempt them to "chill out". The school also said that it was important to move away from jogging pants in order to prepare for professional life.
The German Etiquette Society supports the ban on sweatpants in schools. "Jogging pants are, as the name suggests, functional clothing that is worn for sports or for the relaxation phase afterwards," said a spokeswoman for the German Press Agency on Thursday evening. "Athletes wear their jerseys as a work uniform on the sports field and jogging pants in their free time after work. School days are working hours, so jogging pants have no place there."
The German Etiquette Society does not want to see a new convenience that has crept in through times of working from home transferred to the outside world: "With working from home, a certain carelessness and comfort has set in for many people outside of their own four walls not working," said the spokeswoman.
Work clothes, uniforms and dress codes have grown socially. "The clothing expresses a certain task, authority or affiliation. Based on this wealth of experience, the sweatpants cannot be assigned to a valuable task in everyday life and meet with resistance."
The important thing is not what behavior experts think about the ban, but what the law says. And the ban on jogging pants for pupils issued by the secondary school in Wermelskirchen is, according to legal experts, legally untenable. "There is no basis for an individual ban. The legal situation is pretty clear," said Professor Hinnerk Wissmann, professor at the University of Münster, the German Press Agency.
The North Rhine-Westphalian school law leaves little room for maneuver in this regard. "The school conference can make a recommendation on dress code issues, but nothing more." Accordingly, wearing sweatpants cannot be considered a breach of duty that justifies exclusion from class. This undermines the right to education, said Wissmann.
Professor Markus Ogorek from the University of Cologne expressed a similar view: "A recommendation cannot, in the literal sense, be an obligation." The exclusion of students who wear sports shorts should therefore not be legally covered: "Anyone who wants to take sanctions for not following a recommendation simply ignores its lack of binding effect," says the legal scholar.
In view of the conscious determination by the legislature, there is also no room to enforce an obligation across the board via constructions such as endangering the school peace, explained Ogorek.
The school can impose educational and regulatory measures against students in individual cases. For this, however, there would have to be a breach of duty, which the mere wearing of jogging pants does not represent. "There would have to be more," said Wissmann, who advised the state of North Rhine-Westphalia on questions of school law.
If a conversation with the school management is not fruitful and neither is a petition to the school authority, those affected could seek legal protection against the exclusion from class at the administrative courts.
