ATLANTA -- The Atlanta school board voted unanimously Monday night to ban students from wearing sagging pants that expose underwear — a youthful fashion statement deemed to defy classroom decorum.

The 8-0 vote, with one member absent, actually clarified an existing rule in the student handbook requiring that dress "be modest and of appropriate length and fit," said Jim Manguno, spokesman for the district of almost 50,000 students.

It calls for inserting the words "sagging shorts or trousers" in a section forbidding "extremely tight clothing or baggy oversize clothing," Manguno said.

It will still be up to the principals of the district's 96 schools to determine when there is a violation and what to do about it, he said.

The response likely would progress from a warning up to a hearing before a student judicial panel for repeated violations.