A Texas school district is refusing to make changes to its grooming policy that led to two Black students being suspended earlier this year.
On Monday, the school board of Barbers Hill Independent School District voted unanimously to keep the policy in place that does not allow male students to wear their hair “below the top of a t-shirt collar, below the eyebrows, or below the ear lobes,” according to NPR.
The students who were suspended, cousins Kaden Bradford and De’Andre Arnold, wear their hair in dreadlocks.
“Especially in this moment, coming so soon after George Floyd’s death, and the largest protests in our nation’s history, so many different institutions right now are examining systemic racism and implicit bias, and looking within themselves,” Brian Klosterboer, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas who represents Bradford, said. “This was an opportunity for the school board to revise and change its policies so that it could be inclusive and affirming of all students, regardless of sex and race.”
At the board meeting, Hans Graff, the school district’s attorney, accused the boys of wanting the academic excellence of Barbers Hill but not wanting “to comply with what it takes to achieve that.”
The problematic grooming policy seems only to address a white majority stereotype and implies that academic excellence must conform to that stereotype, leaving its Black students out in the cold. Only 3 percent of the students in the district are Black, NPR reports.
“Black students are and have been disproportionately targeted and penalized for violating facially race-neutral grooming policies that are designed to, and have the effect of, profiling, singling out, and burdening Black children for wearing their hair in its natural state,” the complaint against the district reads.
Arnold was able to comply with the grooming policy by wearing his hair up before the school board made changes in 2019 that would force him to cut his locks to meet the length requirement.
“West Indian cultural traditions specifically prohibit cutting or trimming locks and locks will unravel if they are cut,” said attorney Christina Beeler, who represents Arnold.
Arnold, a senior, was told that he would not be able to go to senior prom or to walk at his high school graduation, so he transferred. Bradford, a sophomore at the time, also moved out of the district. The boy’s parents sued the district in May.
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