Personal Appearance
 Courts have received considerable attention
re: the dress & grooming of teachers.
 Proper dress & grooming promote:
-professional image for teachers
-good grooming among students
-aide in maintenance of respect &
decorum in the classroom
 Teachers claim that staff dress code policies
(wearing of “long” hair, sideburns/beard, tie
& jacket, improper skirt length) invade their
rights of privacy and liberty.
East Hartford Education Association v.
Board of Education of Town of East
Hartford
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, 1977
562 F.2d 838
FACTS
 February 1972, East Hartford Board of
Education adopted “Regulations for Teacher
Dress” which required male teachers to
wear a necktie.
 Richard Brimley (English & filmmaking
teacher) routinely wore a jacket & sportshirt without a tie.
 He was reprimanded because his refusal to
wear a tie was in violation of the dress code
policy.
 He appealed to the principal & was told:
-wear a tie during English class
-wear informal attire during film-making
class
 He then (unsuccessfully) appealed to the
superintendent & the board before
beginning formal arbitration proceedings
which ended in a a decision that the dispute
was not arbitrable.
 Brimley then filed a lawsuit (claiming that the
reprimand violated his rights of free speech & privacy)
and initially complied with the dress code during the
process then returned to his normal form of dress.
Brimley wished:
 to present himself to his students a person who is not
tied to “establishment conformity”
 symbolically indicate to his students his association
with the ideas of the generation to which those
students belong, including the rejection of many of
the customs and values, and of the social outlook, of
the older generation
 that his type of dress enabled him to achieve a closer
rapport with his students, & thus enhances his ability
to teach
ISSUE
Is refusal to comply with a district’s
dress code policy considered
“symbolic speech” & protected
against governmental interference by
the First Amendment?
Is it appropriate for the courts to
become involved with local (trivial)
affairs?
HOLDING
 A school board may impose reasonable
regulations governing the appearance of
the teachers it employs (dress code was
constitutional)
 The board was justified imposing the
regulation & that as public servants in a
special position of trust, teachers may
properly be subjected to many restrictions
in their professional lives which would be
invalid if generally applied.
LEGAL DOCTRINE
The First Amendment to the United
States Constitution was used to
uphold the Board’s decision to impose
the dress code policy.
SIGNIFICANCE
The judges in this case had to re-define their
role and defend their decision:
“our role is not to choose the better education
policy. We may intervene in the decisions
of school authorities only when it has been
shown that they have strayed outside the
area committed to their discretion.”
“Because teaching is by definition an
expressive activity, virtually every decision
made by school authorities would raise First
Amendment issues calling for federal court
intervention.”