diff --git a/src/xml/xml_util.cc b/src/xml/xml_util.cc
index 32fe7dd3..4c3c5526 100644
--- a/src/xml/xml_util.cc
+++ b/src/xml/xml_util.cc
@@ -133,7 +133,7 @@ mjXSchema::mjXSchema(const char* schema[][mjXATTRNUM], int nrow, bool checkptr)
 
     for (int i=0; i<nrow; i++) {
       // base pointers
-      if (!schema[i] || !schema[i][0]) {
+      if (!schema[i][0]) {
         mju::sprintf_arr(msg, "null pointer found in row %d", i);
         error = msg;
         return;