Discrimination based on hair texture in the United States

  Passed law that prohibits discrimination based on hair texture

Part of a series on
Discrimination
General forms Age Caste Class Color Disability Genotype Culture/subculture Hair texture Height Language Looks Mental condition Race / Ethnicity / Nationality Rank Religion Sex Sexual orientation Size Species
Specific forms
Social Acephobia AIDS stigma Adultism Anti-albinism Anti-autism Anti-homelessness Anti-intellectualism Anti-intersex Anti-left handedness Anti-Masonry Antisemitism (Judeophobia) Aporophobia Audism Biphobia Clannism Cronyism Drug use Elitism Ephebiphobia Fatism Gerontophobia Heteronormativity Heterosexism Homophobia Leprosy stigma Lesbophobia Misandry Misogyny Nepotism Pedophobia Perpetual foreigner Pregnancy Reverse Sectarianism Sexism Shadeism Supremacism Black White Transphobia Non-binary TERF Transmisogyny Vegaphobia Xenophobia
Religious Ahmadiyya Atheism Bahá'í Faith Buddhism Catholicism Christianity Modern Hinduism Persecution Falun Gong Islam Persecution Judaism Persecution Jehovah's Witnesses LDS or Mormon Neopaganism Eastern Orthodox Oriental Orthodox Rastafarianism Protestantism Shia Sufism Zoroastrianism
Ethnic/National Albanian African American Arab Armenian Australian Austrian British Catalan Chilean Croat Chinese Dutch English Estonian European Filipino Finnish French German Greek Haitian Hazara Hindus Hispanic Hungarian Igbo Indian Iranian or Persian Irish Israeli Italian Japanese Jewish Khmer Korean Kurds Malay Mexican Middle Eastern Mongolian Pakistani Pashtun Polish Portuguese Quebec Romani Romanian Russian Scottish Serb Slav Somali Soviet Tatar Thai Turks Ukrainian Vietnamese Western
Manifestations Animal cruelty Animal industrial complex Animal testing Blood libel Blood sport Carnism Compulsory sterilization Counter-jihad Cultural genocide Democide Disability hate crime Educational Economic Eliminationism Employment Enemy of the people Ethnic cleansing Ethnic hatred Ethnic joke Ethnocide Forced conversion Freak show Gay bashing Gendercide Genital mutilation Genocide examples Glass ceiling Group libel Hate crime Hate group Hate speech Homeless dumping Housing Indian rolling LGBT hate crime Lavender scare Lynching Meat eating Mortgage Murder music Occupational segregation Persecution Pogrom Purge Race war Red Scare Religious persecution Scapegoating Segregation academy Sex-selective abortion Slavery Slut-shaming Religious terrorism Religious violence Religious war Trans bashing Victimisation Violence against women White flight White power music Wife selling Witch-hunt
Policies Segregation age racial religious sexual Age of candidacy Blood purity Blood quantum Crime of apartheid Disabilities Jewish Catholic Ethnocracy Ethnopluralism Gender pay gap Gender roles Gerontocracy Gerrymandering Ghetto benches Internment Jewish quota Jim Crow laws Law for Protection of the Nation McCarthyism MSM Blood donation restrictions Nonpersons Numerus clausus (as religious or racial quota) Nuremberg Laws One-drop rule Racial quota Racial steering Redlining Same-sex marriage (laws and issues prohibiting) State atheism State religion Sodomy law Ugly law Voter suppression
Countermeasures Affirmative action Animal rights Anti-discrimination law Cultural assimilation Cultural pluralism Diversity training Empowerment Feminism Fighting Discrimination Human rights Intersex rights LGBT rights Masculism Multiculturalism Nonviolence Racial integration Self-determination Social integration Toleration Vegetarianism Veganism
Related topics Allophilia Anthropocentrism Anti-cultural sentiment Assimilation Bias Christian privilege Data discrimination Dehumanization Diversity Ethnic penalty Eugenics Intersectionality Madonna–whore complex Male privilege Masculism Multiculturalism Neurodiversity Oikophobia Oppression Police brutality Political correctness Polyculturalism Power distance Prejudice Racial bias in criminal news Racism by country Religious intolerance Second-generation gender bias Snobbery Social exclusion Social stigma Stereotype threat White privilege

In the United States, discrimination based on hair texture is a form of social injustice predominantly experienced by African Americans who have afro-textured hair. There is no existing federal law that prohibits this form of discrimination. In the 21st century, multiple states and cities passed laws that prohibit such discrimination, California being the first state to do so in 2019 with the CROWN Act.

Legislation

While it is considered reasonable that some U.S. states, such as South Carolina, require that African hair braiders hold a license to braid hair, as improper techniques may cause damage to the scalp and hair follicle, resulting in pain and hair loss, some states have attempted to implement new legislation that placed undue burden on braiders. Notably, in 2013, Texas approved legislation that would have required braiders in the state to undergo 750 hours of training unrelated to braiding and become licensed barbers; Isis Brantley successfully sued the state to overturn the laws, with a United States federal judge ruling the laws unconstitutional. The following year, in 2014, Arkansas sought to require braiders to undergo 1,500 hours of training, which, as was the case with Texas, was unrelated to hair braiding, in order to become licensed cosmetologists; Nivea Earl and Christine McLean brought suit against the state and, in response, the Governor of Arkansas passed the Natural Hair Braiding Protection Act, to prevent future laws from unfairly targeting professional braiders. As of 2015, four U.S. states, Texas, Arkansas, Colorado, and Washington had removed regulations in regards to African hair braiding.

On July 3, 2019, California became the first US state to prohibit discrimination over natural hair. Governor Gavin Newsom signed the CROWN Act into law, banning employers and schools from discriminating against hairstyles such as afros, braids, hair twists, and dreadlocks. New York was the second state to ban such discrimination, with an amendment to the New York Human Rights Law. In December 2019, New Jersey became the third state to prohibit the form of discrimination with their own similarly named CROWN Act.

In March 2020, Virginia and Colorado both passed their own CROWN Acts to ban discrimination based on hair texture.

Dress codes

Many U.S. schools, both public and private in nature, have dress codes in place that specifically prohibit students from wearing dreadlocks, cornrows, afros, box braids, bantu knots, and other natural hairstyles commonly worn by individuals with afro-textured hair. While in the instance of public schools prohibiting certain hairstyles, especially those with cultural or religious significance, may violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, private schools generally have the authority to put in place whatever restrictions they please, so long as they do not receive government funding. Outside of schools, there have also been incidents of employers implementing dress codes that require employees with afro-textured hair to either wear their hair very short or chemically straightened in order to retain their position within the company.

Incidents

In 2013, Vanessa Van Dyke, a 12-year-old African American student at Faith Christian Academy, a private Christian school located in Orlando, Florida, complained to school administrators that several of her classmates were bullying her for having an afro. In response to her complaint, school administrators urged her to cut or chemically straighten her hair and when she refused to do so, she was threatened with expulsion and told her natural hair violated the school's dress code. Van Dyke's mother, Sabrina Kent, went to the media with the story and, in response to the public backlash, school administrator, Pastor Carl Stevens, withdrew the school's threat of expulsion but still urged Van Dyke to "consider the school's request to cut or straighten her hair. Several years later, in 2017, Van Dyke, then 15-years-old, and her mother discussed the ordeal during an appearance on the U.S. talk show, The Real.

In 2013, Tiana Parker, a 7-year-old African American student at Deborah Brown Community School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was sent home from school for having dreadlocks, with school officials referencing that the official handbook banned the hairstyle. Additionally, the handbook banned afros, another natural hairstyle, and argued at the Parker's dreadlocks, maintained by her father Terrence Parker, a professional barber, did not look "presentable." Parker's father ultimately disenrolled her from Deborah Brown Community School and the elementary school was subject to online backlash.

In 2017, Maya and Deanna Cook, twin sisters and sophomores at Mystic Valley Regional Charter School in Malden, Massachusetts were banned from attending prom and from competing for their school's sports teams for refusing to remove the braids in their hair. Their mother, Colleen Cook, alleged that other biracial and black students had faced disciplinary action for wearing their hair in braided styles.

Clinton Stanley, Jr., a 6-year-old African American student at A Book's Christian Academy in Apopka, Florida, was forced to disenroll from the school, a private Fundamentalist Christian school, after school officials told his father, Clinton Stanley, Sr., he'd need to cut his son's hair before he'd be allowed to attend classes. Sue Book, the school administrator, said that school policy required all male students to have short hair.

Andrew Johnson, a 16-year-old African American high school wrestler from New Jersey, was given the ultimatum by a referee to either cut off his dreadlocks or forfeit a match. In order to compete, Johnson cut his hair just minutes before the match. As Johnson had previously wrestled without incident with dreadlocks and the officiating referee had a history of using racial slurs, there was public outrage for Johnson and his parents, Rosa and Charles Johnson, have sought legal representation for their son.

Litigation

In 2010, Chastity Jones, an African American woman with dreadlocks, was offered employment with Catastrophe Management Solutions in Mobile, Alabama on the condition that she removed or cut her dreadlocks and, in 2013, she, with the help of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, filed a lawsuit against the company. Ultimately, courts ruled that company's actions did not constitute racial discrimination and dismissed Jones' case.

In 2017, Destiny Tompkins, a 19-year-old employee of Banana Republic at its White Plains, New York location, was reportedly told by the store manager that she wouldn't be scheduled to work until she removed her waist-length box braids, saying that her braids didn't fit with the brand's image as they were "urban" and "unkempt." Banana Republic's representatives released a statement that they would not tolerate discrimination within their company and that they'd launched an investigation into Tompkins' claims; the store manager, an unnamed Caucasian male, was ultimately terminated. Tompkins left the company and subsequently filed suit against Banana Republic's parent company, Gap Inc., seeking US$1,000,000 in damages for racial discrimination.