For decades, LDF has recognized natural hair discrimination as racism by another name. Through advocacy and litigation, LDF has worked to end race-based hair discrimination.
What is Hair Discrimination? Hair discrimination is rooted in systemic racism, and often helps preserve white spaces. Policies that further hair discrimination advance white Anglo-Saxon Protestant cultural norms as the default norms to which everyone should adhere. Hair and grooming policies that prohibit natural hairstyles — like afros, braids, bantu knots, and locs — have been used to justify the removal of Black children from classrooms and Black adults from their employment. With no nationwide legal protections against hair discrimination, Black people are often left to risk facing consequences at school or work for their natural hair or invest time and money to conform to Eurocentric professionalism and beauty standards.
No one should be targeted for being who they are. The criminalization of Black hairstyles must end. Together with the CROWN Coalition, LDF is fighting to end hair discrimination and push for The CROWN Act to become law prohibiting hair discrimination in all 50 states.
We’ve compiled a list of FAQs to help you learn more about Black hair, how natural hair discrimination perpetuates systemic racism, and how you can help fight back against natural hair discrimination. Below it, you will find examples of LDF cases related to hair discrimination against Black people in schools and workplaces.
Since May 2020, LDF – along with co-counsel Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP– has represented De’Andre Arnold, his mother Sandy Arnold, and his cousin Kaden Bradford in their hair discrimination lawsuit against the Barbers Hill Independent School District (“BHISD”) in Mont Belvieu, Texas about 30 miles east of Houston. BHISD has repeatedly made international headlines for harshly disciplining Native American and Black boys who refuse to cut their culturally significant hair to comply with BHISD’s grooming policy. After BHISD revised its grooming policy in December 2019, De’Andre and Kaden – who had been growing uncut locs for years in homage to their Black and Trinidadian heritage – found themselves assigned to in-school suspension and excluded from extracurricular activities and graduation. LDF’s complaint alleges that BHISD’s construction and enforcement of its hair policy constitutes unlawful sex and race discrimination and a violation of our clients’ right to freedom of expression. The complaint also seeks relief from BHISD’s retaliation against Mrs. Arnold after she spoke out against the policy. The complaint further alleges that, not only did BHISD selectively enforce its discriminatory hair policy to target Black students with uncut locs, but, when the discrimination made the local news, BHISD ramped up enforcement of the hair policy against other students in an apparent attempt to conceal the selective enforcement.
In August 2020, after a 27-hour evidentiary hearing involving the testimony of 10 witnesses, we obtained a preliminary injunction barring the school district from enforcing its hair policy against our client Kaden Bradford, allowing Kaden to finally return to class (De’Andre had already graduated by then). Citing “evidence in the record of selective enforcement, procedural irregularities, and increasingly restrictive amendments [to the hair policy], coupled with the lack of a persuasive justification for the hair-length policy,” the Court held that K.B. had established a substantial likelihood of success on his gender discrimination, race discrimination, and First Amendment claims. The court’s decision generated significant positive press coverage, including on CNN, NBC, and the Houston Chronicle, and energized activism and advocacy surrounding the CROWN Act, with De’Andre and LDF’s former Director of Policy Lisa Cylar Barrett testifying before the Texas House of Representatives Committee for State Affairs concerning proposed versions of the legislation during the 2021 session. On May 27, 2023, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the signed the Texas CROWN Act into law.
The court’s decision prompted the Texas Association of School Boards to update its guidance governing student dress and grooming codes across public schools in Texas; the ACLU of Texas to notify approximately 500 Texas school districts of the decision and urge them to revise discriminatory dress codes; and the National Federation of State High School Associations to recommend schools eliminate grooming requirements for student-athletes that might disproportionately impact members of protected classes where the requirements are not justified by safety concerns. The case has been the subject of scholarly articles, CLE presentations, and law firm advisories, and has also been mentioned in treatises on student discipline law and injunctions. In addition, the court’s decision has led multiple school districts to revise their dress codes to remove discriminatory language. LDF’s success in Arnold v. Barbers Hill Independent School District also inspired similar lawsuits that resulted in additional injunctions barring the enforcement of discriminatory grooming policies in other school districts.
LDF has since defeated a motion for partial dismissal of the case (read LDF’s brief here). The case was proceeding to trial when the school district filed an interlocutory appeal of a pretrial discovery order. The case has since been stayed pending resolution of the appeal. On February 7, 2023, LDF argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on behalf of our clients. We await a decision.
In May 2010, Chastity C. Jones applied to work as a customer service representative with Catastrophe Management Solutions (CMS), an Alabama company. Ms. Jones wore short locs throughout the interview process and CMS hired her on the spot. Nevertheless, after Ms. Jones refused CMS Human Resource Manager’s request to cut her locs, CMS rescinded its offer of employment. In 2013, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against CMS on behalf of Ms. Jones.
On September 15, 2016, an Eleventh Circuit panel ruled that CMS’s refusal to hire Ms. Jones because she wears locs does not violate Title VII. CMS used a facially neutral grooming policy that in effect manifested a preference for hairstyles that suit white hair texture, while prohibiting many natural and protective hairstyles Black hair texture.
On November 10, 2016, LDF filed an amicus brief in EEOC v. Catastrophe Management Solutions, in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. We were joined by the Legal Aid Society – Employment Law Center and Professors D. Wendy Greene and Angela Onwuachi-Willig. LDF’s brief argued in support of a petition for rehearing en banc in this case, which considers whether Title VII’s broad mandate to purge the workplace of racial discrimination reaches a policy that trades on Eurocentric conventions of beauty and professionalism.
Like many other Black men and women, locs are central to Ms. Jones’s sense of self. CMS forced Ms. Jones to choose between gainful employment and remaining true to her racial identity. LDF’s amicus brief argued that, to fulfill its mandate, courts should interpret Title VII expansively to reach every dimension of a person’s racial identity.
In 2018, LDF petitioned the court to consider Jones’ case to correct the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling. LDF argued that the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling departs from established Supreme Court precedent and conflicts with other circuit courts that have decided similar questions, but have reached the correct conclusion. CMS’ notion that locs will become messy, and are therefore unprofessional, is a false racial stereotype that denied an employment opportunity for Ms. Jones. Anti-discrimination laws, like Title VII, were enacted to root out such discriminatory employment practices. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court declined to review the case.
