"Raise the bar, students will reach it." 

That's the message from Tuskegee University President and CEO Mark Brown, a retired Air Force Major General, as he defends the institution's new dress code, one activists are calling an "attack on black culture."

Brown issued a pre-campus arrival memo to Tuskegee University students notifying them that a business suit and shoes were required for business-like meetings and professional dress was expected in the classroom, including barring non-religious head coverings such as durags.

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“I had a wonderful time riding around and walking around the campus on the first and the second day of class,” he said. “The bar was raised and it was being reached. “But the same is true as if you lower the bar, or if you go past the mistake and fail to address it: That becomes the standard. And so, you know, we are a university of standards. I believe all of higher education should be a university standards.”

The university’s policy has drawn criticism from freedom of expression advocates over restrictions that include bans on items such as durags and bonnets, with some critics framing the rules as “respectability politics.”

Brown, however, said the dress code should be viewed as one part of a much broader push toward student success that includes punctuality, attendance, internships, professional certifications, interview preparation and workplace readiness.

Compare this to the attitude of school officials in the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado. That was the target of a civil rights complaint by America First Legal last year after it was revealed the district considered disruptive classroom behavior "culturally appropriate" and barred discipline based on race.

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Tuskegee's approach is similar to that in Mississippi public schools, where educators raised literacy standards and improved reading education. The result is that black students in that state now outperform their peers in California.

It's refreshing to see a university hold students to high standards and believe that those students will rise to meet those standards.

The soft bigotry of low expectations is rampant in academia. And all we've gotten for it is a generation of uneducated, unemployable college graduates.

“We are a university of standards. I believe all of higher education should be a university of standards,” Brown told Fox News Digital.

That's exactly what Tuskegee University and all universities should be.

Juan Williams defended the dress code in an op-ed in The Hill, writing, "Feeding stereotypes with jailhouse-inspired fashion choices is a self-imposed handicap. Feeding negative, ugly assumptions tying young Black people to crime and violence is a self-imposed handicap."

Williams points to rappers Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, known as Notorious B.I.G. and that pushing "negative stereotypes about 'authentic' black life replicating jail time are heavily promoted in rap music and fashion," naming specifically the durags and low-hanging pants.

"Tuskegee is standing up to this lie by giving its students practice in professional dress and habits that lead to success," Williams wrote.

Of course, it's no surprise the dress code was met with accusations of "racism" from the usual suspects. Institutions — up to and including the Smithsonian — have long argued that standards and certain behaviors like hard work and being on time promote a "white supremacy culture." They actively chose to create discord and chaos by discouraging behaviors that promote high standards, success, and civil society.

President Brown, on the other hand, is focused on turning out professional students ready for the real world. 

"The focus is how do I make you a professional in whatever space you want to go in?" Brown said. "Any higher education institution in the country that’s not focused on student success, no matter what type of university that is, is not focused where they should be. That’s why we exist. That’s exactly why we exist."