After serving more than a month of in-school suspension over his dreadlocks, a Black student in Texas was told he will be removed from his high school and sent to a disciplinary alternative education program on Thursday.
Darryl George, 18, is a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu and has been suspended since Aug. 31. He will be sent to EPIC, an alternative school program, from Oct. 12 through Nov. 29 for “failure to comply” with multiple campus and classroom regulations, the principal said in a Wednesday letter provided to The Associated Press by the family.
Principal Lance Murphy wrote that George has repeatedly violated the district’s “previously communicated standards of student conduct." The letter also says that George will be allowed to return to regular classroom instruction on Nov. 30 but will not be allowed to return to his high school’s campus until then unless he’s there to discuss his conduct with school administrators.
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.
George’s mother, Darresha George, and the family’s attorney deny the teenager’s hairstyle violates the dress code. The family last month filed a formal complaint with the Texas Education Agency and a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state’s governor and attorney general, alleging they failed to enforce a new law outlawing discrimination based on hairstyles.
The family alleges George’s suspension and subsequent discipline violate the state’s CROWN Act, which took effect Sept. 1. The law, an acronym for “Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” is intended to prohibit race-based hair discrimination and bars employers and schools from penalizing people because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including Afros, braids, dreadlocks, twists or Bantu knots.
A federal version passed in the U.S. House last year, but was not successful in the Senate.
The school district also filed a lawsuit in state district court asking a judge to clarify whether its dress code restrictions limiting student hair length for boys violates the CROWN Act. The lawsuit was filed in Chambers County, east of Houston.
George’s school previously clashed with two other Black male students over the dress code.
Barbers Hill officials told cousins De’Andre Arnold and Kaden Bradford they had to cut their dreadlocks in 2020. Their families sued the district in May 2020, and a federal judge later ruled the district’s hair policy was discriminatory. Their pending case helped spur Texas lawmakers to approve the state’s CROWN Act. Both students withdrew from the school, with Bradford returning after the judge’s ruling.
link: https://www.aol.com/news/black-student-suspended-over-hairstyle-220842177.html
Imagine being sent to the school with all the unruly and undisciplined kids because of your hairstyle. Crazy and so fucking racist.
Isn’t this in Texas or somewhere equally as shitty? They would have sent him to prison for his hair if they could have. School to prison pipeline is real.
Texas passed the CROWN-act to combat hair-based racial discrimination because that very same school already lost two cases where they discriminated black youths because of their hair.
For once Texas is on the right side.
Even Texas said this was too far
Imagine being more bigoted than Texas
So if it was some freaky white chick with pink and purple hair all over the place would it be racist then? Because those policies apply to them too. Don’t be ignorant.
Okay, where are the white kids being penalized by this rule?
It doesn’t matter if “these rules apply to white kids” if they are only actually applied to poc.
Happens all the time, except that doesn’t make the news, because they’re white, so even if they get suspended, or totally expelled, it’s not new worthy. Nobody cares if a white kid is punished, or for that fact if a white person is killed by a black cop. Racism would almost never be accused, even by the white people. All that said, My niece is one of them. She’s in her punk/rocker phase and her crazy multi color hair has had her private school pissed off a handful of times, and yes, at one point suspension was threatened and my brother and sisnlaw had to go to the school (also private). My brother threatened them with better stuff and it sort of went a way, but still ongoing. Private schools do plenty of stupid shit, they don’t care whether you’re black or white, they want everybody to fall in line with their rules, which many times are complete bullshit.
“My niece has multicolour hair and hasn’t actually been suspended” is not the argument you think it is.
Of course it’s not, because she’s white. If she was black there would have been racial accusations and that’s what you want, so you can cry racist. Thanks for proving my point.
“She hasn’t been suspended because she’s white” is definately not the argument you think it is.
(Yes, I know that wasn’t your intention but man, be careful how to word things maybe.)
Let’s take a look at the 2 situations here:
Situation 1:
POC going to a public school being disciplined due to their hair style.
Situation 2:
White kid going to a private school threatened with discipline due to their hair style, but not actually disciplined in any way just because their parents went in to talk to them.
I don’t know how any rational person looks at these and thinks “totally the same thing.”
Aside from the fact, you’re quoting "totally the same thing.” Which I never said, you’re ignoring the exact same situation, yet dismissing one because it had a better outcome, no thanks to my brother, simple because of race. You’re clearly tip toeing which is pretty damn obvious with Situation 1 being about a “POC”, yet situation 2 is a “white kid”, why not a black kid? Why not a Caucasian? Finny, how the stupid PC terms only come out for one side? Also why should I “be careful” how I worded something? The PC police coming for me?
The entire point is that literally the same dipshit rule exists, public and private, and kids get shit over it, and when one side if better at out arguing the school and it drops, it’s because of race, nothing else, which ignores the common sense that if that were truly the driver, then my niece wouldn’t have had that problem to begin with, but again… MAKE IT abuot race!
Right, I’m the one making unrelated things about race when you just spent a paragraph bitching about “POC” and “white” being used which is completely irrelevant. Go ahead and swap them for “black” and “caucasian”, it makes no difference to my post.
So are you arguing that this student’s parents didn’t go talk to the principal? Or do they need to get your brother specifically to talk to the principal, as he is the only one that can convince them to not enforce the rules for a specific student?
Oh, I see. The white family just happens to be better at arguing it than the black family. The black family that has hired a lawyer. To argue it.
Man, your brother should look into getting a law degree.
Question: Are black people ever affected by racism in any significant way?
This boy was in public school. Private schools can be much more descriminatory.
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