Texas school did not discriminate against Black teen by punishing him over dreadlocks, judge rules

Darryl George expesses ‘anger, sadness, disappointment’ after ruling

A judge has ruled that a Texas high school did not discriminate in punishing a Black teen who refused to change his dreadlocks hairstyle.

Darryl George, 18, was first suspended from the Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, Texas, in August after school officials said his braided locks fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes and violated the district’s dress code.

He was suspended again in September and a third time in December on the first day back at school.

The judge said that the school’s dress and grooming policies do not violate the state’s CROWN Act that took effect in September to prohibit race-based hair discrimination.

The act bars employers and schools from penalising people because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including Afros, braids, locks, twists or Bantu knots.

Chambers County judge Chap Cain III said the district’s policy “does not prohibit nor does it discriminate against male students who wear braids, locs, or twists”.

The spokesperson for the George family said the judgement and the trial have left the teenager with tears in his eyes and they plan to file an appeal.

“All because of my hair?” Mr George said, according to the family’s spokesperson. “I can’t get my education because of my hair. I can’t be around my peers and enjoy my junior year because of my hair.”

His mother, Darresha George, filed a complaint on her son’s behalf claiming the district violated the new law and said the braided dreadlock has cultural significance in the black community.

The school district filed a counter-lawsuit in September and urged the court to settle the matter. The ruling on Thursday came in the same case.

Throughout the majority of the school year, Mr George, a junior, has been either in in-school suspension at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu or attending an off-site disciplinary program.

“The Texas legal system has validated our position that the district’s dress code does not violate the CROWN Act and that the CROWN Act does not give students unlimited self-expression,” Barbers Hill Superintendent Greg Poole said in a statement.

Democratic state representative Ron Reynolds, who was one of the co-authors of the CROWN Act, said that while the protection of hair length was not specifically mentioned in the CROWN Act, it was inferred.

“Anyone familiar with braids, locks, twists knows it requires a certain amount of length,” Mr Reynolds said.

It is “almost impossible for a person to comply with this (grooming) policy and wear that protective hairstyle,” he said.

Democratic representative from Massachusetts Ayanna Pressley called the ruling “pathetic” and urged the Congress to pass federal legislation protecting Black hairstyles.

“This is a pathetic, wilful and anti-Black misinterpretation of the CROWN Act,” she wrote on X. “Black folks deserve to show up as our full selves without punishment or criminalization.”

US representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, a New Jersey Democrat, also called the decision “a terrible interpretation of the CROWN Act”.

“This is what we mean by institutional racism,” Mr Coleman said on X.