A federal judge in Houston dismissed most of the claims of a black high school student who claimed racial and gender discrimination after he was punished for refusing to change his hairstyle. The ruling is a significant victory for the Barbers Hill School District, which defends its policy of limiting hair length for male students as a way to instill discipline and teach them grooming and respect for authority.
However, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown expressed skepticism as to whether the school district’s policy really serves the best interests of students. “Not everything that is undesirable, annoying, or even harmful constitutes a violation of law, let alone a constitutional problem,” Brown wrote in his order.
The Associated Press has reached out to the school district and George’s attorney, Allie Booker, for comment, but no response was received as of Tuesday.
The student at the center of the case, identified as George, 18, faced significant disruption to his education during the 2023-24 school year after the school district claimed his long hair violated its dress code. George’s typical school day was interrupted by expulsion at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu or participation in an out-of-school disciplinary program.
District policy classifies George’s tied and twisted locks as a violation because if left loose, his hair would fall below his shirt collar, eyebrows, or earlobes. The district maintains that other students with similar hairstyles comply with the length guidelines.
George and his mother, Darresha George, filed a civil rights violation lawsuit in federal court against the school district, the district superintendent, its principal and its assistant principal, as well as Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton. They argued that George’s punishment violates the CROWN Act – a new state law that went into effect in September that prohibits racial hair discrimination. The CROWN Act prevents employers and schools from punishing people based on their hair texture or protective hairstyles such as Afros, braids, locks, braids and Bantu knots.
Despite the CROWN Act, Judge Brown ruled that George had not demonstrated a “persistent, widespread practice of disparate, racism-based enforcement of the policy.” In addition, the claim that George’s free speech rights were violated under the First Amendment was dismissed because his attorney could not find case law supporting hair length as “protected expressive conduct under the First Amendment.”
Various claims alleging violations of George’s Fourteenth Amendment due process rights were also dismissed, and Abbott, Paxton, the district school board, and other school employees were excluded from the case. The only remaining claim is sex discrimination, based on the school district’s lack of clear policies explaining why girls are allowed to wear long hair and boys are not. Judge Brown stated, “Because the district provides no justification for the sex differences in its dress code, the lawsuit survives this first phase.”
Earlier this year, a state judge ruled that the school district’s punishment of George did not violate the CROWN Act. Judge Brown cited a 1970 case in which an El Paso judge ruled against a school district that had barred a male student from enrolling because of the length of his hair. That ruling was later overturned by an appeals court. Brown quoted the El Paso judge: “The existence and enforcement of the hair-cutting rule is far more disruptive to the flow of instruction than the hair it is intended to prohibit,” adding, “Unfortunately, that is the case here as well.”
Barbers Hill’s hair policy faced a similar challenge in 2020, when two other students filed a lawsuit in federal court. One student returned to school after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order, indicating that it was “substantially likely” that his rights to free speech and freedom from racial discrimination would be violated if he were expelled from the school. That lawsuit is still pending.
