School dress codes are back in the spotlight after a high-profile court case, but the real question is why schools think student hairstyles are any of their concern.
Darryl George last week lost the latest stage of his legal battle after a Texas judge ruled his school’s dress code did not break a state-wide law prohibiting racial discrimination based on hair.
The 18-year-old was removed from class and put in isolation and subsequently suspended from Barbers Hill Independent School District after he refused to cut his braided dreadlocks, a hairstyle with cultural significance in some black communities.
His family say they plan to appeal, although in the meantime George remains suspended from school.
The school policy states that “Male students’ hair must not extend below the top of a t-shirt collar or be gathered or worn in a style that would allow the hair to extend below the top of a t-shirt collar, below the eyebrows, or below the ear lobes when let down.”
Barbers Hill successfully argued that this did not violate the Crown Act, designed to prohibit racial discrimination based on hairstyles, on the grounds that the act does not specifically mention hair length.
For some, it is about adhering to the school’s rules, but this just begs the question of why this particular rule exists.
And underlying this is the question of why schools are concerning themselves with their students’ hairstyles at all.
In a more conformist era, there may have been a reason to encourage male students to keep their hair short, but it is hard to justify preparing students for a world that ended half a century ago.
There are legitimate reasons why schools can be justified in taking an interest in a student’s hair. Styles that denotes gang affiliation is one, outlandish hairstyles that could cause disruption is perhaps another. But these are very much the exception.
These rare cases aside, it is hard to find sensible reasons for prohibiting hairstyles, and in their absence, sticking to the rule becomes an end in itself.
And imposing such policies leaves schools vulnerable to the charge of racial discrimination.
It is surely no coincidence that most students who fall foul of school hairstyle policies are black.
In 2020, for example, a federal judge ruled that a hairstyle code that saw two students sanctioned was discriminatory. Both students were black, and the district involved was again Barbers Hill.
In the U.K. a number of schools — and businesses — have signed up to the Halo Code, which aims to protect hairstyles associated with racial, ethnic and cultural identities, introduced following a series of legal challenges against school hairstyle policies that led to black students being sanctioned.
Although the code is voluntary, Britain’s equality watchdog has warned schools that banning hairstyles without allowing exceptions on religious or racial grounds is likely to be unlawful.
Back in the U.S. a number of states have banned hair discrimination, following incidents where black students were penalized, although efforts to introduce a federal ban have not yet succeeded.
But even without a federal ban, it’s hard to see the justification for blanket bans on hairstyles. And if schools are going to insist that students follow the rules, then the onus is on them to make sure the rules are reasonable and fair.