At least nine of the 191 public high schools and combined middle and high schools in Tokyo still have a rule that specifies what color a student's underwear should be, according to a recent survey.
Such unreasonable school rules are known as "black school rules," and members of the Japanese Communist Party's Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, who conducted the survey, are demanding that the schools concerned review their regulations.
Last year, the political party asked each school to disclose information on its school rules for fiscal 2019, then by January they analyzed the disclosed data of 184 schools.
As a result, nine full-time high schools designated students' underwear be "plain white." The result also showed 147 schools had rules on students' hairstyles such as prohibiting them from dyeing and perming.
The metropolitan board of education has since sent a notice to each school stating that "Respect for human rights is fundamental."
A spokesperson of the board said, "We'll instruct schools to modify rules as much as necessary while listening to the opinions of students and their parents."
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