Shorts protest at Delhi's St Stephen's: Dress code or personal freedom?

NEW DELHI: A protest over a pair of shorts at one of Delhi University’s most elite colleges has sparked a wider debate on how much control educational institutions should have over adult students, and where personal freedom starts.St Stephen’s College has started its new academic session with some students deliberately turning up in shorts after the college banned them from classrooms, the assembly hall, library, dining hall and chapel. Principal Susan Elias’s notice has sparked accusations of “moral policing”. But the bigger question that campuses across India face beyond the immediate controversy is whether colleges should be in the business of controlling how adults dress, or whether it should be left to the individual’s choice.The ban itself was not completely new. St Stephen’s had long discouraged the wearing of shorts in formal spaces. What was new this year was that an unwritten convention was made an official rule.