Judge rules against majority of claims in Black student's hair discrimination case

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A federal judge has dismissed most of the claims in a lawsuit filed by a Black Texas high school student who alleged that school officials had violated his civil rights by insisting he cut his hair to fit school policy.

Darryl George’s battle with Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu (a town roughly 40 minutes outside of Houston) began last summer when he faced numerous in-school suspensions over his natural locs.

School officials said George's locs fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes, according to local media reports, which violates the district's dress code for male students.

George missed most of his regular classes in his junior year, spending the day in in-school suspension.

“He has to sit on a stool for eight hours in a cubicle," Darryl's mother, Darresha George, told The Associated Press at the time. "That's very uncomfortable. Every day he'd come home, he'd say his back hurts because he has to sit on a stool."

As a result, George and his mother sued the school district, the district superintendent, his principal and assistant principal as well as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton for violation of the state's CROWN Act (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair), which bans race-based hair discrimination.

George was initially suspended just a day before the Texas law went into effect statewide on Sept 1 of last year.

In the Tuesday ruling, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown dismissed the claims against Abbott, Paxton, and the district and school employees.

Brown also dismissed claims that enforcement was primarily being done against Black students, as well as the claim that George’s First Amendment rights had been violated as a result of the district policy. The judge said the school had not shown a "persistent, widespread practice of disparate, race-based enforcement" with its policy. When it came to the free speech claim, he determined there was no precedent to demonstrate that hair length is supported under the First Amendment.

However, George’s claim of sex discrimination stood. In his ruling, Brown wrote: "What is the rationale for the dress code’s distinction between male and female students? Because the District does not provide any reason for the sex-based distinctions in its dress code, the claim survives this initial stage."

Brown acknowledged that the state’s case had its issues, invoking a similar case from 1970 in which the judge concluded that “the presence and enforcement of the hair-cut rule causes far more disruption of the classroom instructional process than the hair it seeks to prohibit.”

Brown wrote: “Regrettably, so too here.”