This nonsense should have been REALLY settled with the Crown Act being signed into law, but here we are....
NEWS: The family of a Black high school student suspended for his hairstyle has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Texas' governor and attorney general.
https://apnews.com/article/hairstyles-dreadlocks-racial-discrimination-crown-act-e79ede512923b672a275abf054e2407b
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@LilHulkQ While I am certainly against dress codes in public schools of any kind, im confused why they claim a policy that is neutrally written (simply doesnt hair past a certain length) somehow is a racial issue itself.
Now i think its fair to be concerned it was **applied** raciall and only use to attack this poor kid and letting whites who violate get a pass.. and that should be illegal and persued in court if that happened.
But reading the court case thats not what they are arguing. They are arguing the policy itself, even if uniformly applied, disproportionately attacks blacks... how does a length restriction on hair disproportionately target blacks on its own? I mean if anything the opposite, since the law is defined by length past ones elbows that would target straight haired people disproportionately while tightly-curled hair would form an afro and would take quite the effort to get an afro "below the elbows"...
So yea... while i dont know if he was discriminated against specifically im really having a hard time seeing where this rule, when applied evenly, would be racist. I would love to hear thoughts that might explain this.
It's a rule which was created to conform to conservative White traditions. Black hair and related cultural traditions are often very different.
By demanding that all children conform to a White tradition, many Black children have to choose between abandoning part of their ethnic identity, or being deprived of an education for keeping a sensible Black hairstyle.
Individual application of the rule is not necessarily racist. But the rule itself is still systemically racist.
Hmm I think I see the logic there... the idea that "short hair is professional" is generally a white-culture thing and therefore unfair to apply that in law, even if applied to black and white equally.
I will have to think on that point a bit, but I see where its going, sounds reasonable at first glance and is generally in line with why i am against dress codes in genera.
However the other side i am pondering is if "long hair is bad" is really a white culture thing at all.. afterall long hair being seen as normal and professional has been the case in both white and black cultures. It seems to me it is discriminatory against most cultures both black and white. Which makes it wrong and discriminatory still, just not sure if its so explicitly anti-black, its really just anti-expression of any culture.
It certainly is discriminatory in multiple ways, but what matters is that some of them are violating rights as a result of someone's identity in a protected class.
It's also not solely down to what looks professional. It's a matter of how differently textured hair behaves, which in turn has driven what is currently acceptable in different cultures.
It's easy for White hair to conform with those rules. Whereas Black children are left with few and often unreasonable options.
And I'll agree that these rules were probably not explicitly written to exclude Black children. But they were written with absolutely no thought of Black children, and it's now apparent that they have a discriminatory impact.
That's exactly why laws have been written to prohibit this situation, especially in a context where a fundamental right (to an education) is being unreasonably withheld.
I certainly do agree rules like this should not be allowed. For tons of reasons, and cultural discrimination, accidental or otherwise, is certainly one of them.
