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
Time for the students to protest by having hair that isn’t “acceptable.” I imagine suspending most of the students won’t go over well
What does geometric even mean? Cubes? Dodecahedrons?
Can we call it a dodecahedron-o-do?
Edit: kids should start styling their hair into cubes, in protest. “The rules say it must be geometrical!”
I think they mean you gotta have a hairstyle that looks like it was directly pulled from a N64 era video game
wait… n64 characters weren’t all just bald…?
Basically, take Ramiel’s hairstyle as an example.
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.”:::
TIL that the spoiler thing was a feature
spoiler
thanks for showing me that
For those who come looking later it’s a feature for the web frontend but wrt mobile apps Boost for Lemmy at least makes an absolute mess of both the spoiler tag and the asterisk as a standard character. The bold text, however, is my own emphasis and I believe the part that needs emphasized.
Do hairstyles actually interfere with teaching?
I can’t imagine how.
Teacher having a stroke trying not to spontaneously burn a cross when exposed to a black kid who “doesn’t know their place”
I get the racist angle, what I’m asking for is how do they justify those laws/rules, as in how it harms education.
What literal excuse could they give to say that a hairstyle affects the education of their students?
Because it teaches kids to sit down and shut up.
This reads like 60s era rules that never got updated. Hell it sounds like big puffy afros from the 60s/70s were meant to maliciously comply with that haircut rule.
Again, what’s their actual justification, what do they vocalize and express is the reason why they have this rule?
I’m honestly don’t want to hear the other sides flames about it, I want to hear why they’re doing what they’re doing from their own mouths.
No, you’re missing it. That is their actual justification. Jim Crow bullshit.
No, you’re missing it. That is their actual justification. Jim Crow bullshit.
Those actual words came out of their mouths, they said “We’re implementing these rules because of Jim Crow”?
Yet another reason on why Texas is so awful.
I still don’t get it
And his hair is rad anyways
Old fuddy white administration were just jealous.
Disgustingly ridiculous
disgustingly racist…
I hope the family successfully destroys the finances of the people involved in these super racist decisions.
Usually it’s taxpayers money.
And in this case it shouldn’t be.
Yes it should. The school administration answers to elected officials who represent the tax payers/voters. If the community doesn’t like spending money on racist bullshit they should vote for someone with a god-damned lick of sense.
It won’t, it’s not a racist policy. The people enforcing it probably are but if anything it’s a homophobic policy
The problem is hair length not hair style
Though some religious beliefs prevent cutting hair so there may be something there
The word you were searching for is sexist. I’ve been saying since the initial article that this might be unconstitutional under Bostock v. Clayton County.
You are saying the language of the written policy is not racist. It’s ultimately for a jury to decide whether the policy in action is racist.
You hold a higher opinion of the American public than I do if you think a jury will find something racially motivated that isn’t overtly so
Juries are peak society.
There is no higher power coming to decide things for us, it’s only us.
A good trial attorney can explain complex and even uncomfortable things to random people in an engaging way that anyone can understand. Don’t have to rely on the jury’s ability to understand something for themselves, just their ability to learn, and the lawyer’s ability to inform.
Ah, so Texas is pulling an Iran. Stay classy, lone star state.
Each place has its rules, follow them or gtfo. I don’t see a problem here. Schools are not fashion halls. When I was in school, we weren’t allowed long hair, any alt hair style, using gels or other materials to style our hair etc …
The rule itself is literally illegal. Texas passed a law specifically because if this one school district’s bullshit.
They don’t want to be communists and they’re literally doing what the communists in my country used to do
They are being authoritarian, likely your country was also under an authoritarian regime in the past based on what you’re saying. Systems of economy are kinda separate
Or, both.
Nobody else got downvoted a bunch except you, because you know Hexbear is reading
Not remotely communist nor were the folks in “your country” communists regardless of what anyone claims. Always apply the “Is North Korea really a Democracy” test to any such labeling.
They want to be authoritarians, whatever flavor they have to be to have power.
They don’t want anyone else to have power over them.
So when they’re in the out group, they’ll ramp up the persecution narrative, and when they’re in power, they’ll ruthlessly repress everyone else.
All makes internal sense, if you’re an asshole.
Maybe try teaching the guy more, and caring about his hair less.
But that completely defeats the purpose! (which is the racism)
I don’t think it’s racism, just a school with fucking insane rules that should never be allowed:
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.
Why the fuck schools give a single shit about how kids dress themselves or wear their hair is beyond me.
Those rules are there to be racist, these types of dress codes were literally invented to be exclusionary and/or erase culture to “”“assimilate”“” populations of native people.
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.
So… Where is the catalog of approved haircuts for students to pick from? Fucking fascist ideas being masked in bullshit like avoiding fake “distractions” in classrooms.
The approved hairstyles:
The bottom left guy looks a little like a North Korean Tom Hanks.
I’d like to see a catalog of edge cases that would theoretically be up to code but still look outrageous.
I’m sure we could get creative here. Like, you could go with the Friar Tuck look with the top part shaved and that would be fine. I guess it depends on what they consider “geometrical”
I’m more of a Manchu queue style.
Ban blonde straight hair and watch the racists squirm.
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.
blowing billions on stupid lawsuits is their thing.
That and blowing money on highschool football stadiums.
And apparently blowing more money bussing people out of their state.
Naw? That’s just… you know, a hobby.
What is the state apparatus for if not funding private interests through frivolous lawsuits?
Fuck it makes me so mad when schools make boys cut their hair. My little brother had to cut his hair that he had been growing since he was in his single digits. It was devastating. This was back in the early '00s
To be fair being racist has long been a winning strategy in Texas so you can imagine that their bag of tricks isn’t particularly deep in matters like this
I’m not a kid, but looking back on this type of situation as an adult, I’d settle for half of whatever they offer as long as the administrator(s) driving this were also banned from all public education jobs in the state, permanently. Fines to the district aren’t a deterrent to bad administration on their, but fear of job security absolutely is.
How does a previous case not automatically make the current situation unacceptable? Do they have to retry the exact same situation over and over again?
if I understand correctly, it’s actually more illegal now, because Texas passed the CROWN act after the previous 2.
I suppose there may be differences that make a difference to the outcome, but it seems unlikely here.
Because principal is a bully and willing to use his powers to destroy lives. The methods to protect people are very slow and so he gets away with it for years until the district loses a major lawsuit. Then he quietly gets reassigned or retires and we pretend the entire thing never happened.
Bully and Bigot, a very iconic duo.
I don’t trust principals
On principle?
A previous case is certainly a good argument in court, however the opposition may be able to argue material differentiating circumstances that may not be immediately obvious (in general, not in this case). That is why it isn’t considered an automatic win.
Unfortunately in the eyes of racist Texans, they encourage him to take racist actions against literal children.
Nah, they’re not asking. This is a setup for a challenge of the CROWN Act and a possible reversal. Just watch, they’ll appeal it all the way up to Texas Supreme Court if they need to.
I get that this was an angry post, but it gave me a strong positive energy boost. Thank you.
That’s our Fiscal Conservatives. Ready to spend endless money on stupid bullshit but very upset about spending that actually helps the populace.
