I refer to the letter MMU dress code a forward-thinking move .

I can't help but to wonder whether the above letter was a piece of sarcasm. However, further re-reading seems to imply that the author is dead-beat serious about the ‘forward-thinking-ness’ of the new dress code rules introduced at the Multimedia University.

The rule states that students wearing ‘sandals, short skirts, shorts and open and tight T-shirts are not allowed to enter the library any more’.

The writer applauded this move as a way ‘to teach their students how to appear and behave in different situations, positions, conditions and occasions’.

More so, the writer seems to have the idea that universities should push for more dress codes, or have courses (really?) on methods of behaving and appearing.

Initially, I would not want to dignify such opinion with a response, but I am afraid public might misconstrue silence as agreement.

While I agree that people, students in particular, need to dress for the occasion, I wonder why this needs to be enforced within a university compound, or worse still, taught as in a course? Is our Malaysian society so incapable of understanding the basic manners of dressing for the occasion?

Or perhaps, the writer has a different judgement of what is a ‘proper’ clothing. As for MMU's new regulation, doesn't it sounds like another attempt to rein in personal expression and freedom by our bureaucratic authorities?

What's next? No yellow shirts on Fridays? Is a student with sandals less polite than a student with shoes on? Surely the library, being a location for study and research, should deserve a dress code of ‘comfort first, protocol second’?

While I am merely raising rhetorical questions here and provide no arguments, it is simply because there is not need for an argument for draconian rules that tell us how to live our lives.

Let's students be students and don't bar students from a library simply because she is wearing a tight MNG shirt that might arouse the imagination of some.