A Texas high school sent a Black student back to in-school suspension for refusing to change his hairstyle, renewing a monthslong standoff over a dress code policy the teen’s family calls discriminatory.
The student, Darryl George, was suspended for 13 days because his hair is out of compliance when let down, according to a disciplinary notice issued by Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, Texas. It was his first day back at the school after spending a month at an off-site disciplinary program.
George, 18, already has spent more than 80% of his junior year outside of his regular classroom.
He was first pulled from the classroom at the Houston-area school in August after school officials said his braided locs fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes and violated the district’s dress code. His family argues the punishment violates the CROWN Act, which became law in Texas in September and is intended to prohibit race-based hair discrimination. The school says the CROWN Act does not address hair length.
It's Texas, so my money is on a few good ol' boys who 1.) don't appreciate the kid's skin color, 2.) don't love that he's nationally embarrassed them for the fools they are, and 3.) are dense enough to believe they can still "win" this thing.
Its generally conservative viewpoints of fitting people into "the norm". Conservatism/traditionalism doesnt stop in the U.S, japan has schools for example that require students dye their hair black and conform to a very atrict uniform. Although that requirement was dropped very recently in tokyo(like 2021), it likely still exist in some regions.
It's always confused me why schools think suspension would be an effective punishment when the kid often doesn't want to be in class anyway (not in the case of this kid obviously) and definitely won't be learning anything.
I've never heard the term "in-school suspension". It sounds like what I remember as "detention", but done during what would otherwise be the school day, yeah? On top of this being some blatant racism, it seems like a really poor use of school resources.
They call it 'in school suspension' (ISS) to differentiate from out of school suspension, where the student is sent home and told not to return for a period of time. Typically ISS is overseen by a faculty member and the students are given relevant workbooks/sheets to whatever courses they're enrolled in to complete and they are required to be quiet, work alone, and are not allowed to used phones/entertainment.
At least, that's how it was when I was still in highschool (2014).
ISS is literally just detention. Your put into a classroom where you can't talk to anyone, or do anything besides your work. You even take a separate lunch time then everyone else.
It is even worse than that. He wears his hair in a way that the it does not go below his eyebrows and ear lobes. But the school is mad that it could . It makes my blood boil.
How can anyone blatantly break a law and not get charged? The state has a law prohibiting what these school admins are doing so why aren’t the police called and charges filled against them? I’m guess the police are fine with whatever racist authoritarian bullshit the school does.
I knew this case was a slam dunk* the second I heard about it. Not just because it's ridiculous but because this exact scenario has been through the courts before.
The voters should hold the school board accountable for the tax dollars they wasted and vote them out.*
Texas even has a law forbidding this. I lived in Houston for a few years, and it's actually astonishing the General Assembly passed a law to forbid discrimination of hair style.
Just to give you a general idea of how fucked up these school officials are. They're worse than the worst of Texas.
No, that's already been decided at the state level (note the summary pointing out that Texas passed the Crown Act, which makes it illegal for admins to consider hairstyle more important than education).
Now is the time for the racists who refuse to acknowledge that decision to lose their fucking jobs.
Because he’s missed 80% of his classes, which won’t help with the challenges he will already face as black man, and because this would be a silly hill to die on.
Do you mean that worrying about someone's hairstyle is completely outside of the scope of- and detrimental to the resources of- education? Or that someone's specific hairstyle can be detrimental to the quality of education received itself?