Texas high school sends Black student back to in-school suspension over his locs hairstyle

The student, Darryl George, was suspended for 13 days because his hair is out of compliance when let down, according to a disciplinary notice issued by Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, Texas. It was his first day back at the school after spending a month at an off-site disciplinary program.

George, 18, already has spent more than 80% of his junior year outside of his regular classroom.

He was first pulled from the classroom at the Houston-area school in August after school officials said his braided locs fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes and violated the district’s dress code. His family argues the punishment violates the CROWN Act, which became law in Texas in September and is intended to prohibit race-based hair discrimination. The school says the CROWN Act does not address hair length.

xc2215x,

Sounds like some racism was involved.

doublejay1999,
@doublejay1999@lemmy.world avatar

Time to decide what’s important. Education or hairstyle.

nomous,

Everyone decided, it’s education. The dumbfucks on the schoolboard haven’t gotten the memo, but they will…

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Yes, it is time for the school to decide that. And then decide that his education is more important than what they think about his hairstyle.

agent_flounder,
@agent_flounder@lemmy.world avatar

I wished the school would pick education but I’m not hopeful

ares35,
ares35 avatar

it's texas, in a county entirely run by (R)acists.

you already know what they 'picked'.

cooljacob204,

The option that provides more freedom because red states are more free right????

Enkrod,

In this case at least, the State of Texas is on the right side of history, they passed the Crown Act to protect black students from this BS school policy shit.

It’s the school that’s actually… get this… too racist for the State of Texas.

aniki,

If there’s no one to enforce the laws then it’s not too-racist for Texas in the slightest.

Laws aren’t real.

be_excellent_to_each_other,
be_excellent_to_each_other avatar

I mean, if by "right side of history" you mean history from May of this year.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/29/texas-crown-act-law/

Enkrod,

Well they really took their time to get there and in many things, i think they haven’t even started walking, but at least they are there in this now.

But yeah, Texas isnt cough cough the most progressive place cough cough, which makes “too racist even for Texas” very meaningful.

be_excellent_to_each_other,
be_excellent_to_each_other avatar

I do completely agree with your overall point, just had to point out that it was a very recent change.

aniki,

you can say racists here. there’s no language filters.

SuiXi3D,
SuiXi3D avatar

I wish the state would pick education…

Ensign_Crab,

The state has, at least in cases like this. Texas passed the Crown Act. This racist district is ignoring the law.

aniki,

deleted_by_author

    •
    Ensign_Crab,

    From the article:

    State Rep. Ron Reynolds, a Democrat and chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, said he planned to file an amendment to the law during the next session that “specifically addresses length to stop their pretextual argument to not comply with the Crown Act.”

    I’ll note that there’s no federal equivalent to the Crown Act. Does that mean that congress is more racist than Texas?

    Would explain a fucking lot, to be honest.

    NatakuNox,
    @NatakuNox@lemmy.world avatar

    Time decide what’s important. Compliance or your culture/spiritual/personal identity

    NotMyOldRedditName,

    Just a touch of genocide makes it okay!

    dangblingus,

    Why? That’s an arbitrary rule you just came up with.

    doublejay1999,
    @doublejay1999@lemmy.world avatar

    Because he’s missed 80% of his classes, which won’t help with the challenges he will already face as black man, and because this would be a silly hill to die on.

    partial_accumen,

    Because he’s missed 80% of his classes

    Looking at other articles it looks like that missed classroom time was for continued suspensions over his hairstyle.

    This effort has apparently been backed by the district superintendent.

    Greg Poole, who has been district superintendent since 2006, said the policy is legal and teaches students to conform as a sacrifice benefitting everyone.

    “When you are asked to conform … and give up something for the betterment of the whole, there is a psychological benefit,” Poole said. “We need more teaching (of) sacrifice.”

    Just for bonus points the school district’s policy is not only racist but sexist. This policy only applies to males.

    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.

    I have no idea what “geometrical” hair would be.

    prole,

    How in the fuck does this guy’s hair affect anybody else in literally any way? Absurd

    partial_accumen,

    The superintendent with his comment has made it clear it has nothing to do with hair, and everything to do with exerting control and punishment when that control is rejected.

    Mishmash2000,
    @Mishmash2000@lemmy.nz avatar

    Holy heck?! Who is this psychopath?! “You must conform!” in this case basically = “You must assimilate!”. This is why some version of CRT, at least an overview of the fundamentals, SHOULD be taught in highshool so students can recognise these sorts of policies for what they often are. But the system is hardly going to educate the subjects of its oppression is it, or they might actually recognize and resist policies and practices that are rooted in racism and discrimination. Can’t have that!

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    “When you are asked to conform … and give up something for the betterment of the whole, there is a psychological benefit,”

    We want you all to be good little soldiers so when you graduate, you can go off and be good little soldiers.

    AA5B,

    I can’t believe I had to scroll this far to find this quote - anyone else horrified that a school superintendent can say this and think it’s ok? Military school, sure, it serves a purpose that may save your life, but this doesn’t appear to be a military school, and conformity is not an educational value

    Put that together with this kid missing 80% of the year so far over hair and there’s something seriously wrong with that school.

    I mean, it’s a weird hill for the kid to die on, and I don’t see how it’s in his interest to do this, but it’s a serious failing of the school to impact his education like this

    grue,

    No, that’s already been decided at the state level (note the summary pointing out that Texas passed the Crown Act, which makes it illegal for admins to consider hairstyle more important than education).

    Now is the time for the racists who refuse to acknowledge that decision to lose their fucking jobs.

    1847953620,

    Do you mean that worrying about someone’s hairstyle is completely outside of the scope of- and detrimental to the resources of- education? Or that someone’s specific hairstyle can be detrimental to the quality of education received itself?

    doublejay1999,
    @doublejay1999@lemmy.world avatar

    Neither

    mx_smith,

    How can anyone blatantly break a law and not get charged? The state has a law prohibiting what these school admins are doing so why aren’t the police called and charges filled against them? I’m guess the police are fine with whatever racist authoritarian bullshit the school does.

    HiddenLayer5,

    How can anyone blatantly break a law and not get charged?

    The letter of the law means nothing if the people in charge of enforcement don’t agree with it.

    Zevlen,

    Two words; flawed democracy

    Prethoryn,
    @Prethoryn@lemmy.world avatar

    Nah, say it like it is. Racism.

    TokenBoomer,

    Potato/potato

    magnetosphere,
    magnetosphere avatar

    This is STILL going on?!? That school district is shit.

    littlewonder,

    I knew this case was a slam dunk* the second I heard about it. Not just because it’s ridiculous but because this exact scenario has been through the courts before.

    The voters should hold the school board accountable for the tax dollars they wasted and vote them out.*

    ^* ^This ^is ^Texas ^though ^so ^everything’s ^made ^up ^and ^the ^points ^don’t ^matter.

    assassin_aragorn,

    Texas even has a law forbidding this. I lived in Houston for a few years, and it’s actually astonishing the General Assembly passed a law to forbid discrimination of hair style.

    Just to give you a general idea of how fucked up these school officials are. They’re worse than the worst of Texas.

    joshuanozzi,

    Well thank fuck these school officials are protecting students from this hairrorist.

    dan1101,

    Hair below eyebrows and ear lobes? What year is this, 1962?

    ApexHunter,

    It is even worse than that. He wears his hair in a way that the it does not go below his eyebrows and ear lobes. But the school is mad that it could . It makes my blood boil.

    NotMyOldRedditName,

    It’s absolutely terrible, they’re setting him back while he stands up for his rights.

    That hair is awesome too. Fuck them.

    I hope he wins a lot of money from the delays he’s received and punitive damages beyond that.

    interceder270, (edited )

    Yeah. They’re preventing him from getting his education for some racist bullshit.

    Everyone who has a hand in this pie needs to be fired and future wages garnished to repay him for what he’s lost.

    We can even do the math to find out how much it costs to educate 1 student for 1 day and then multiply that by how many days he’s been suspended.

    ASeriesOfPoorChoices,

    I am appalled that people continue to not make headline (heh) puns about hairstyle issues at Barber Hill High School.

    doublejay1999,
    @doublejay1999@lemmy.world avatar

    This is the only thing that matters. Most of the comments are just snippy teens saying “you can’t tell me what to do”

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    snippy

    I see what you did there.

    cheese_greater,

    Can you cut it out, pleez ;)

    joshuanozzi,

    A dread-ful situation, forcing this young man to cut short his education.

    But seriously, fuck those racists who are clearly violating their state law.

    Hupf,

    That’ll teach him! Not math and stuff, though.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s always confused me why schools think suspension would be an effective punishment when the kid often doesn’t want to be in class anyway (not in the case of this kid obviously) and definitely won’t be learning anything.

    Lmaydev,

    It’s what you do when you can’t deal with a child to prevent them fucking up other people’s schooling.

    I guess it also puts pressure on the parents to do something.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Except, at least when I was in school, they’re not given schoolwork to do when in suspension. They just have to sit there and do nothing all day. They don’t learn anything.

    cooljacob204,

    When I was in school your teachers would put together work for you to do.

    be_excellent_to_each_other,
    be_excellent_to_each_other avatar

    And this student's hair is interfering with other peoples' schooling by....

    Zacryon,

    Well his locks are too long. So it’s obviously a security concern since other students could trip over them and fall. /s

    cooljacob204,

    Except it's not used like that, it's used to discipline anything they feel is a "big" deal.

    Funny story, I got a week suspension in middle school for bringing a low powered laser to school. On the same day friend of mine lit a fire in his desk and got 3 days.

    The school admin was pushing for a much worse penalty for me for some reason and my parents flipped their shit and somehow got it "reduced" to a week.

    PsychedSy,

    They’d give me ISS or suspend me for…skipping class.

    FanciestPants,

    I’ve never heard the term “in-school suspension”. It sounds like what I remember as “detention”, but done during what would otherwise be the school day, yeah? On top of this being some blatant racism, it seems like a really poor use of school resources.

    Gerudo,

    ISS is literally just detention. Your put into a classroom where you can’t talk to anyone, or do anything besides your work. You even take a separate lunch time then everyone else.

    interceder270,

    Detention for me was something you did after school. Essentially you were kept late.

    In-school suspension is just like detention during school hours.

    Halosheep,

    They call it ‘in school suspension’ (ISS) to differentiate from out of school suspension, where the student is sent home and told not to return for a period of time. Typically ISS is overseen by a faculty member and the students are given relevant workbooks/sheets to whatever courses they’re enrolled in to complete and they are required to be quiet, work alone, and are not allowed to used phones/entertainment.

    At least, that’s how it was when I was still in highschool (2014).

    Diplomjodler,

    It never ceased to amaze me how US schools are being run like concentration camps. How very land of the free.

    squirmy_wormy,

    I don’t think you understand how concentration camps worked if you use that sentence.

    Steve,

    Pestering a kid about his hair style is literally the same as starving him in a prison camp

    squirmy_wormy,

    The comment isn’t phrased like sarcasm though. Sarcasm would be something like:

    God, American schools are just like concentration camps, how do you handle it?

    And even then, being sarcastic here with a phrase like that would mean that this is a dumb thing for people to complain about, which also isn’t true.

    TurnItOff_OnAgain,

    I think people missed the sarcasm of this post, lol

    Steve,

    I guess you actually have to spell out the “SARCASM” disclaimer or everything is to be assumed 100% sincere

    TurnItOff_OnAgain,

    /s usually is good enough

    em2,
    @em2@lemmy.ml avatar

    Get me out of here

    Weslee,

    Why do schools care what length someone’s hair is anyway? Are they just power mad control freaks?

    radioactiveradio,

    Because everyone should look like everyone else. Like clones. After all working in the factories needs co-ordination.

    don,

    Is the admin white? Well there ya go.

    Mango,

    Yes. Schools exist to make your kids into little workers for their kids.

    ivanafterall,
    ivanafterall avatar

    It's Texas, so my money is on a few good ol' boys who 1.) don't appreciate the kid's skin color, 2.) don't love that he's nationally embarrassed them for the fools they are, and 3.) are dense enough to believe they can still "win" this thing.

    dangblingus,

    Good question. I think we all know the answer to why they’re making an example out of this kid.

    Dudewitbow, (edited )

    Its generally conservative viewpoints of fitting people into “the norm”. Conservatism/traditionalism doesnt stop in the U.S, japan has schools for example that require students dye their hair black and conform to a very atrict uniform. Although that requirement was dropped very recently in tokyo(like 2021), it likely still exist in some regions.

    interceder270,

    Are they just power mad control freaks?

    Yes. Schools have cultures just like anywhere else. Once the administration has a sufficient number of power-hungry losers, this is the end result.

    They can never do anything wrong. It is always someone else’s fault for everything. And all of them reinforce this mentality in each other.

    It’s disgusting.

    Weslee,

    I had dyed blue hair in highschool, I think this must be an American thing

    prole,

    America is huge, it varies wildly by region. Nobody in my area gives a shit about stuff like that, and didn’t ~25 years ago when I was in HS either

    Additional_Prune,

    I had some punk students with non-natural hair colors when I was a high school teacher in California, and that was a long time ago. Nobody cared. This story is from Texas, though.

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