Every school has its codes in Japan, but the strict regulations of some of them which impose everything from head to toe, from black hair to white shoelaces, are the subject of growing criticism and even lawsuits. justice.
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Toshiyuki Kusumoto, a father of two in the southwestern city of Oita, recently went to court to protect his youngest son from school regulations he calls “unreasonable”.
This concerns in particular the length of the hair, the prohibition of ponytails and braids, as well as low socks, and the obligation to have white shoelaces.
“This type of school regulations is contrary to respect for individual freedom and human rights which are guaranteed by the Constitution,” Mr. Kusumoto, a lawyer by profession, told AFP.
He intends to launch a judicial arbitration procedure with the school and the municipality to obtain a revision of the regulations.
Reforms are already underway in Tokyo, which recently announced that strict rules on matters such as hair color would be scrapped in the capital’s public schools from April.
Mr Kusumoto remembers being angered by certain regulations himself as a child and hopes his action will lead to deeper societal change.
The misfortunes of a high school girl
These types of regulations generally begin to apply when entering college, around the age of 12.
They emerged after the 1970s, when “violence against teachers had become a social problem, with schools trying to control the situation through rules”, explains Takashi Otsu, professor of education at the Women’s University of Mukogawa (west).
“Certain kinds of rules are needed…but decisions should be made with transparency and, ideally, involving students, which would allow children to learn democratic decision-making,” he said.
In 2017, a Japanese high school student from Osaka County (west) who had been forced to dye her naturally brown hair black filed a lawsuit seeking damages of 2.2 million yen (17,000 euros) for suffering psychological.
This case caused a stir and led the Ministry of Education in 2021 to order boards of education to check whether school regulations were adapted to real life.
However, the court and then the Osaka Court of Appeal both ruled that schools could require their students to dye their hair black, for “various educational” purposes.
“This regulation has destroyed the life of a high school girl,” his lawyer told AFP, on condition of anonymity to protect the identity of his client.
The young woman, now 22, did not give up, however, and appealed to the Supreme Court last November.
“Children who no longer think”
Other actions have been launched, including a petition submitted in January to the Ministry of Education by the high school student branch of the rights organization Voice Up Japan.
She asks the ministry to encourage schools to discuss the change in the rules with the participation of their pupils.
“We started this campaign because some of our members had unpleasant experiences with school regulations,” said Hatsune Sawada, 16, one of the high school girls behind the initiative.
The petition gives the example of a young girl regularly humiliated by a teacher because she had grown out her bangs which, when flattened with her hand, covered her eyebrows, which was a violation of the rules.
In Oita, public school students are also required to wear gender-varying uniforms, with pants for boys and skirts for girls.
The local Board of Education says the rules “not only help nurture a sense of togetherness among the children, but also ease the economic burden of buying clothes for families”.
Mr. Kusumoto disagrees. “The feeling of unity is not something that is imposed, it is something that should be generated spontaneously”. Imposing these kinds of rules produces “children who no longer think”.