Black student suspended over his hairstyle to be sent to an alternative education program
Black student suspended over his hairstyle to be sent to an alternative education program
After serving more than a month of in-school suspension over his dreadlocks, a Black student in Texas was told he will be removed from his high school and sent to a disciplinary alternative education program on Thursday. Darryl George, 18, is a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu and ...
After serving more than a month of in-school suspension over his dreadlocks, a Black student in Texas was told he will be removed from his high school and sent to a disciplinary alternative education program on Thursday.
Darryl George, 18, is a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu and has been suspended since Aug. 31. He will be sent to EPIC, an alternative school program, from Oct. 12 through Nov. 29 for “failure to comply” with multiple campus and classroom regulations, the principal said in a Wednesday letter provided to The Associated Press by the family.
Principal Lance Murphy wrote that George has repeatedly violated the district's “previously communicated standards of student conduct." The letter also says that George will be allowed to return to regular classroom instruction on Nov. 30 but will not be allowed to return to his high school's campus until then unless he's there to discuss his conduct with school administrators.
Barbers Hill Independent School District prohibits male students from having hair extending below the eyebrows, ear lobes or top of a T-shirt collar, according to the student handbook. Additionally, hair on all students must be clean, well-groomed, geometrical and not an unnatural color or variation. The school does not require uniforms.
George's mother, Darresha George, and the family's attorney deny the teenager's hairstyle violates the dress code. The family last month filed a formal complaint with the Texas Education Agency and a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state’s governor and attorney general, alleging they failed to enforce a new law outlawing discrimination based on hairstyles.
The family alleges George's suspension and subsequent discipline violate the state’s CROWN Act, which took effect Sept. 1. The law, an acronym for “Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” is intended to prohibit race-based hair discrimination and bars employers and schools from penalizing people because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including Afros, braids, dreadlocks, twists or Bantu knots.
A federal version passed in the U.S. House last year, but was not successful in the Senate.
The school district also filed a lawsuit in state district court asking a judge to clarify whether its dress code restrictions limiting student hair length for boys violates the CROWN Act. The lawsuit was filed in Chambers County, east of Houston.
George’s school previously clashed with two other Black male students over the dress code.
Barbers Hill officials told cousins De’Andre Arnold and Kaden Bradford they had to cut their dreadlocks in 2020. Their families sued the district in May 2020, and a federal judge later ruled the district’s hair policy was discriminatory. Their pending case helped spur Texas lawmakers to approve the state’s CROWN Act. Both students withdrew from the school, with Bradford returning after the judge’s ruling.
link: https://www.aol.com/news/black-student-suspended-over-hairstyle-220842177.html
Principal Lance Murphy is literally just going to die on this hill apparently. Between the massive cost the school district took because of the 2020 court loss over this exact same thing, and this giant L the school district is about to take for not only being now in Violation of Federal Law but also Texas literally passed a law, because of this asshat and the 2020 loss, indicating that he's not legally allowed to do exactly what he's doing.
The school district also filed a lawsuit in state district court asking a judge to clarify whether its dress code restrictions limiting student hair length for boys violates the CROWN Act
Which if you are unsure if your policy is violating a law or not, you should likely not have the policy until the court gives you more clarity. Because if the Courts do indeed indicate that the school is in violation of Texas' CROWN Act, they've just handed this kid millions of dollars in restitution, which I guess they can just pile on top of the millions this school district has blown so far on litigation.
You would think that at some point taxpayers would be up in arms, but nope it's Texas, blowing billions on stupid lawsuits is their thing.
Fuck, dude, that is painfully racist of the school.
Barbers Hill Independent School District prohibits male students from having hair extending below the eyebrows, ear lobes or top of a T-shirt collar, according to the student handbook. Additionally, hair on all students must be clean, well-groomed, geometrical and not an unnatural color or variation. The school does not require uniforms.
Land of the fucking free.
Call me when the HOA allows you to plant clover on the front lawn.
"Failure to comply"
There it is, that's the entire purpose of the modern education system, to beat us into submission to arbitrary socioeconomic roles, to curtail independence and creativity, rendering us fodder for corporate masters. Mind all the rules and maybe tomorrow you'll get the extra nice table scraps.
Good for them not complying, they literally harmed nobody including themselves. The suspension is clearly a punitive measure to heal the administration's wounded pride, which is also an essential aspect of the education system.
Ironic of this story to come out of a place called "Barbers" highschool. They take their haircuts pretty damn seriously up on that hill.
Barbers hill, and they're picking on a dude's hair.
The other day I was walking into a bar with my partner. We're white, straight-passing, generally clean looking folk. The bar had a sign on it that said "No bandanas, no gang colors". They were wearing a bandana, and my t-shirt was blue, but I couldn't help but notice that we were able to walk into that bar, be served and settle our tab at the end of the night.
It's about selective enforcement. You can't say "No black people", so you say "no black people stuff". Or you make something everyone does illegal and then give the people in charge broad leeway as to when they can choose to ignore it. Or you set up situations that aren't open in their racism but just so happen to target one group over another, like setting up checks on the Mexican border and then claiming you're not targeting latino people because if you happen to catch white illegal immigrants you'll deport them too. In the words of Republican party strategist Lee Atwater (trigger warning: just lots of open, blatant racism and n-bombs)
spoiler
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Ngger, ngger, ngger.” By 1968 you can’t say “ngger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Ngger, ngger.”:::
Can't imagine my school making international news, especially with something as pathetic. It reads like a bad Onion article. Barber High having a strict hair code? WTF. And this story goes for months, and it's not the first time, and it's real. How? Everything screams stupid fiction there, and yet that's what happens in a small town in Texas. Idk if they did that out of racism or boredom, but come on, I read about this comical idiocy from the opposite side of the globe. I can't imagine what's going through the mind of this school's admin.
Ban blonde straight hair and watch the racists squirm.
this whole situation is ridiculous
I really cannot stand this shit, I remember back in school we had to have approved hairstyles and uniform rules, it was all bs to me. None of that really had any corelation to how good a student was.
Ah, so Texas is pulling an Iran. Stay classy, lone star state.
Ah yes, lets punish and humiliate a person for expressing a completely harmless form of individuality at point in their lives where individuality is exceedingly important for healthy development. This won't have any negative consequences at all.
Yet another reason on why Texas is so awful.
Random thoughts:
Disgust at the principal.
How is this not race based discrimination?
Why is a state law protecting from race based discrimination even necessary when the constitution should do that already?
I'm impressed Texas passed an anti-discrimination law aimed at protecting an oppressed group.
How is this not sex based discrimination?
MERICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (/s this is fucked up)
Of course it's Texas.
Give this mf a modeling job damn! Look at that blue steel!
man that hairstyle is ugly
People here dont seem to understand the principles behind education. Black teachers, whoever needs to enforce the styles so be it, but the component of adherence to uniform presentation (without compromising human individuality and genetic differences) is a robust and important part of teaching children how to conform to society, and in some instances learn that sometimes individuality has to be sacrificed for the good of a functioning society. The racism component is nonexistent in this example if you read the backstory.
Please also remember - if I'm wrong, I'm happy to discuss or learn something. Just upvoting views that you agree with is not a productive exercise.
