The official code of conduct for the District of Columbia Courts states that “[p]ersons wearing inappropriate attire may be excluded from the courthouse and its courtrooms.” While it gives some examples of inappropriate attire – gang paraphernalia, items with obscene messages, “provocative clothing” — it ultimately leaves what’s “suitable” up to the sole discretion of courthouse security.

Courthouse dress codes are important to pay attention to because they limit who gets to be seen and heard in our criminal courts. And, understood as the partial courtroom closures that they are, they violate the Sixth Amendment right to a public trial, which requires that exclusion decisions be made by judges in courtrooms, not security on the steps.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees people charged with crimes the right to a public trial. Courts across the country, from New York to Texas, have held that this right is violated when some people are kept out of the courtroom, even if the doors aren’t closed to everyone.

A vague ban on “provocative” clothing, for example, almost encourages the policing of women’s attire. Dress codes that prohibit T-shirts and jeans can prove to be classist. Policies against “baggy” pants, durags and headscarves certainly create circumstances under which people of color, black people in particular, can be barred from courthouses.

Read the full article on court dress codes by Jeff Campbell at The Marshall Project