The right to religious freedom is enshrined in numerous global and regional human rights instruments to which Ethiopia is a party. Except in a very limited grounds provided by law, arbitrary interference on the manifestation of individual religious belief is prohibited in all of these instruments, and a State bears obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill towards this right as part of realizing its human right responsibility. Despite its recognition in the Constitution, there was a move to restrict the right by public universities. Currently, many public universities in Ethiopia issued the Students‟ Codes of Conduct and attempt to regulate the manifestations of individual belief or faith inside the campus. The codes provides for some form of restrictions on religious wearing or symbols, any dietary requests and puts a guideline for worship and other religious practices. In spite of pointing finger to the government for the alleged violation of the right to religious freedom, extensive study has not been conducted to assess the level of recognition offered to this right in relevant laws of the country which would probably have provided a room for the public universities to encroach this right. In addition, other than blaming the administrative bodies of public universities for violating this right, examining the compatibility or otherwise of the limitation imposed and its practical applicability has not been given much scholarly attention. In this context, this research aims to assess Ethiopia‟s public university students‟ codes of conduct with international, regional and national standards of freedom of religion. Further, it examines the practical applicability of the codes of conduct in Hawassa, Wollo, Bahirdar and Adigrat Universities. The result of the study reveals that the restriction provided by public university students‟ codes of conduct infringes the right to religious freedom of students. This is because, the limitations go beyond the grounds of restriction as stated in the major human rights instruments. All the grounds mentioned that necessitated for its promulgation are not listed in the guiding principles or are not directly related to the purposes intended to be achieved. Although all universities should have similar codes based on the direction given from the Ministry of Education, there is variation in the practical application of the codes among universities. It could be argued, the practical applicability of the codes in public universities are affected by the will of the administrative bodies of the university and the domination of a certain religious group where the university is situated. After all, the researcher concluded that, the students‟ codes of conduct in the Ethiopian public universities failed to meet the standards and guiding principle provided in the human rights instruments that guiding the preparation and implementation of any law that has a potential to limit the right to religious freedom