For as long as schools have policed hairstyles as part of their dress codes, some students have seen the rules as attempts to deny their cultural and religious identities.
Nowhere have school rules on hair been a bigger flashpoint than in Texas, where a trial this week is set to determine whether high school administrators can continue punishing a Black teenager for refusing to cut his hair. The 18-year-old student, Darryl George, who wears his hair in locs tied atop his head, has been kept out of his classroom since the start of the school year.
To school administrators, strict dress codes can be tools for promoting uniformity and discipline. But advocates say the codes disproportionately affect students of color and the punishments disrupt learning. Under pressure, many schools in Texas have removed boys-only hair length rules, while hundreds of districts maintain hair restrictions written into their dress codes.
Schools that enforce strict dress codes have higher rates of punishment that take students away from learning, such as suspensions and expulsions, according to an October 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office. The report called on the U.S. Department of Education to provide resources to help schools design more equitable dress codes.
Even the military has recognized that certain hairstyles are worse on different ethnicities hair, and has subsequently relaxed the standards since I’ve been active.
The military, which is all about uniformity and “discipline”, can see that different cultures have different hair treatments/needs, and not everything has to be “all Caucasian, all the time”.
And yet our K-12 schools can’t seem to do that?! Like wtf?
Even better, the principle in Texas pointed to the military as a shining example of uniformity. Not realizing the real reasons behind that. (Easy field hygiene)
Yet again a military larper ruins it for everyone around them.
Oh they know. Discipline doesn’t mean punishment for wrong deeds, it means forceful changes in any behavior, concepts, or ideas that the one executing the discipline dislikes. Disrespecting your “betters” is always a part of this too. I got pulled over once because I passed a police office. He was going under the speed limit so u went the speed limit and passed him. His reason was not showing due respect.