My response is: That is a great attitude for a yeshiva or an institution.
You have the right to adopt a dress code that everyone has to conform to.
In practise that is pretty much what the yeshivas do. Their "dress code" is
a black hat and jacket for davening and maybe even for walking in public.
But once you are dealing with people outside your own private organization,
who should be the person to decide what the "uniform" will be? You may
think the uniform should be a black hat but someone else may think the
uniform should include Kippa srugas, or purple scarves, or bare-heads, or
anything else you can think of. It may be a good idea that every jew should
dress in uniform (and I am not so sure that it is a good idea - a sports
team isn't a great analogy - they dress the same for a couple of hours to
do their job and then they all put on whatever they want. I don't think you
want people comparing their dress code to Dennis Rodman's!!!!) but who has
the right to decide what the dress code should include.
Rabbi Raphael Goldmeier
gldmeier@actcom.co.il