A Black Texas high school student who was suspended because his loc hairstyle violated the district’s dress code was suspended again upon his return to school Monday, an attorney for the family told CNN.
Darryl George has been suspended for more than two weeks because his loc hairstyle violates the Barbers Hill Independent School District dress and grooming code, according to his family.
The code states that “male students’ hair will not extend, at any time, below the eyebrows or below the ear lobes,” CNN previously reported.
Dress code standards for hair and appearance are pretty dumb… but even as they are written in this school district, I don’t understand how this kid’s hair violates it.
The code says the hair can’t extend below the eyebrows or below the ear lobes…and this kid’s hair is above his eyebrows and above his ear lobes. I’m looking at the student’s front, side, and back photos that are attached to the linked news article. What is the problem?
The actual dress code written in the article is:
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.
It’s basically “no long hair, regardless of how it is styled.”
This view is rooted in 1 Corinthians 11:14-15 “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering”.
I have no point to make beyond pointing that out as trivia.
Not quite. He is not really wearing a style that would allow the hair to extend below the collar, brows, or lobes because he can’t just take out his hair style. Its not a pony tail to be removed and distract all the boys like in the movies, its been documented to be in place for at least 8 days. And even if he did his hair could stick straight out or stright up. Seems like the dress code was written for white people hair and instead of using any sort of common sense to not enforce or even just change the code the school is doubling down on murky rules in the national eye. If it walks like a racist, talks like a racist, and deprives black people of an education because of their hair its probably a racist.
So, no male Sihk students are allowed, unless there’s a religious exemption.
You think this backwater bunch of racists gives a fuck about religions that aren’t their particular flavor of Christian?
below the ear lobes when let down.
You know, I was coming in here to make a joke about how when the article says
male students’ hair will not extend, at any time, below the eyebrows or below the ear lobes
they would say that “any time” also applies when he takes a shower at home, but the code literally says that. Yikes.
As far as I can tell, the “problem” is that the dresscode states that the student’s hair can’t extend below his eyebrows or ear lobes “at any time”. So, hypothetically, if this student took his hair down out of the braids, it would be longer than the dresscode allowed.
This, of course, is fucking stupid reasoning. The school probably just doesn’t like this hairstyle - because racism - and is choosing to use an overly literal reading of the rule to try to force the student to change it.
I’m assuming that his hair was slightly different from when this picture was taken. Not that it matters even a little bit. Codes like this are written for the purpose of giving authorities an excuse to persecute. Wouldn’t be surprising if they ignored plenty of violations from “upstanding” (read: white) students.
From the interview, his mother says it’s because if he let his hair down it might “extend below the eyebrows or below the ear lobes”. I think it’s a poorly written policy, because in my interpretation, he would only be in violation if he let his hair down, but he’s in compliance as long as he never does that at school. And even then, would for example, an afro violate that? It sounds like they should have included in the policy “male students’ hair will must be no longer than 3" at any point" but again, that’s a poorly written policy, waiting for holes to be punched in it.
