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On September 1st, the state of Texas approved a legislation prohibiting hair discrimination. However, according to ABC13, a 17-year-old high school student has spent the most of the year in in-school suspension due to his dreadlocks.
“I know he’s upset, and he feels terrible about it,” Darryl’s mother, Darresha George, said. Darryl attends Barbers Hill High School. His suspension follows the passage of the CROWN Act in response to a similar incident at school.
De’Andre Arnold, the man who was told to chop his hair, filed a complaint alongside other plaintiffs following the incident. “Absolutely zero excuse for this school district that knows the policy to do this all over again,” Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City, one of the authors of the legislation, said.
Male pupils are not permitted to wear hair that extends beyond their brows or earlobes, according to the school district’s handbook. According to ABC13, students’ hair cannot fall below the top of a T-shirt collar.
A district spokesperson, however, told the news outlet that the rule with regard to hair “is not in conflict with the CROWN Act.” “The vaguer the law, the more challenges you can expect,” Peyton Peebles, an attorney, said.
Peebles also said that though the CROWN Act doesn’t make mention of hair length, it “could be a way to discriminate against certain hairstyles without being openly discriminatory.”
“It has the effect of preventing somebody from wearing a hairstyle that they may otherwise want to wear,” Peebles added.
