 "Photo: Photo/Alexa Massau")
On Jan. 2, 2010, UNC Charlotte Recreational Services will ban the wearing of cut-off T-shirts in the on-campus fitness center. Students and faculty alike who have not had to worry about their workout attire are now forced to be cautious, or be sent home.
The official statement of the updated dress code is as follows: “Participants must wear appropriate clothing, including a full, unaltered T-shirt with
sleeves (long or short, no cap-sleeve) that covers the chest, sides, back, and stomach.
Shirt must be free of buttons, snaps, or zippers. No jeans, cargo pants, or shorts with belt loops, belts, or zippers may be worn.”
Some angered students created an online petition via Facebook to help grow support, advertise their cause, and hopefully disallow the upcoming rule change. “The Right to Bare Arms” petition is on Facebook, and is public and open to all members interested in joining. So far, the petition has grasped the attention of 748 members. With 11 UNC Charlotte student administrators, this issue is surely a cause that students have found worthy of a fight.
With a motto of “reprieve the sleeve”, students that have joined this group argue on the wall that sleeves will tear when doing upper body exercises, and that wearing sleeves makes them sweat more. Students also comment that they should have the right to wear whatever they want to at a college gym that they spend so much money on tuition for.
So why take away a right that the student body seems to be so set on keeping?
Recreational Services’ latest release explains that the reason for the change was to prevent skin diseases caused from the use of unclean machines. However, Recreational Services is not only forbidding the use of sleeveless T-shirts, they have also already hired a student crew that will clean up the machines more frequently, and have provided the gym with proper sanitation cleansers.
With the help of cooperative students, Recreational Services hopes to prevent the spread of ringworm, impetigo, and staph infections, which is very easy to pick up through skin-on-skin contact, or by using machines that an infected person has not cleaned.
Recreational Services realizes that wearing a full T-shirt will not completely prevent skin diseases from spreading, but it will reduce the amount of germs. Most campuses, the release says, require students and faculty to use and clean equipment with the help of a clean towel. It will be easier, however, to enforce the T-shirt rule at the door, and keep the germs and the germ spreaders out.
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