A Texas judge on Thursday said the Barbers Hill Independent School District can punish a Black student who wears his hair in long locs without violating Texas’ new CROWN Act, which is meant to prevent hairstyle discrimination in schools and workplaces.
The decision came after a monthslong dispute between the district and Darryl George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School who has been sent to in-school suspension since August for wearing his hair in long locs. Legislators last year passed a law called the Texas CROWN Act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of hair texture or protective styles associated with race. Protective styles include locs, braids and twists.
But the Barbers Hill school district successfully argued it can still enforce its policy that prohibits males from wearing hair that extends beyond eyebrows, earlobes or collars even if it’s gathered on top of the student’s head.
Judge Chap B. Cain III issued the ruling after a short trial in which lawyers for opposing sides argued over the legislative intent behind the CROWN Act. Lawyers for Barbers Hill said lawmakers would have included explicit language about hair length had they intended the law to cover it. Allie Booker, representing Darryl George and his mother Darresha George, said protective styles are only possible with long hair.
That's the only silver lining to this case. It is making national news because this is far from the norm. I know there were plenty of boys when I was growing up who had longer hair. Unlike the idiots running this school, my school administrators had better things to do than go after them for a style choice that had no bearing on academic performance.
Hell, during the 90s is was super fashionable for boys to have very long hair. These people are living in the 19th century.
I'm in a very conservative part of the country and there are a few boys in my neighborhood that have long hair. And that's with the culture here being against such things.
It's really a non-issue pretty much everywhere. I guess some admin somewhere was a bit too power hungry.
Just because you didn't / don't experience it doesn't mean it's uncommon.
This isn't actually about the length of his hair.
It's that Black natural / protective hair styles are seen by racists as being "disrespectful" and they even said why they have the policy.
Their list included many things, but only one of those was actually relevent here "respect for authority".
Racist people and racist systems will always punish Blackness. This is just one specific example of a larger pattern.
Oh, for sure, these things still happen and far too often when it comes to race, from what I've heard about studies on race and disparities in treatment in schools. I'm specifically talking about hair length. I remember there were some Black boys around me in high school with longer hair, but the school drew from an area that was more heavily white, Latino, and Asian so the sample size was minuscule. This is in Portland, OR so of course the culture is going to be different than a conservative part of Texas.
My point is that focusing on length is missing the point.
That's just the ad-hoc justification for their racist actions.
Most schools have absurd policies in writing that are never actually enforced, until someone decides it has suddenly become a-rule-so-important-we'll-go-to-court-over-it .
Most of the time, when admin gets suddenly very focused on a rule like this, you'll find there's a marginalized student that they want to apply it to. But don't bring race into this!
This right here