High and tight cut in Austrian ruling

Times change, they say. Consider this account of a recent decision of the Constitutional Court of Austria: hair requirements cannot discriminate between women and men in the armed frorces. Excerpt:

Austria’s Constitutional Court struck down the military’s strict short-hair requirement for male soldiers in Vienna on Thursday. The policy must be scrapped and replaced with a grooming code that complies with constitutional standards for both men and women. The judges concluded the contested provisions conflicted with equality protections and interfered with personal rights. 

The decision ends a longstanding mandate that male professional soldiers and conscripts keep their hair short enough not to touch the collar. The case reached the court after a soldier challenged the policy following an order that he pay a €2,200 fine for wearing his hair in a ponytail, according to BTA. The court determined that the stricter standards for men could not be justified and had to be removed as inconsistent with the principle of equal treatment.

Wikipedia has this article on "high and tight." Want to know more about military hairstyles? Check this out.