MONT BELVIEU, Texas – Thirty-four days and counting.
That’s how long one Barbers Hill High School student has been serving in-school suspension.
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The student, Darryl George, is not in trouble for fighting. Not for skipping classes. However, he’s in trouble for technically breaking the district’s dress code.
RELATED: A Black student was suspended for his hairstyle. The school says it wasn’t discrimination
Darryl has been in in-school suspension since Aug. 31 due to his hairstyle. Darryl has dreadlocks that he and his family said are normally put up in a neat fashion, as pictured below.
His family said the punishment is directly in violation of the state’s CROWN Act, which took effect Sept. 1.
According to its website, “The CROWN ACT is a crucial step in furthering cultural diversity and acceptance as it sets out to protect people of color from discriminatory practices that have been entrenched in our society - particularly in schools and workplaces. The Act criminalizes the targeting of hairstyles associated with race and prevents employers, educators, and oppressors from imposing stringent ‘policies’ related to physical appearances.”
Officials with the Houston-area school said his dreadlocks violate the district’s dress code because they fall below his eyebrows and earlobes.
Darryl also said he’s been dealing with inhumane conditions, such as sitting in a cold room on a stool for up to eight hours. He also stated that they serve different food in ISS than for students who are free to attend regular classes.
“[You’re] giving them jail bologna sandwiches. And let’s be clear about bologna, research shows you can get cancer from bologna,” Activist Candice Matthews said. She added there are no teachers explaining Darryl’s lessons while he’s in ISS.
The Texas Education Code does not outline requirements for in-school suspension (ISS) programs.
Darryl and his mother Darresha said they feel like he’s being discriminated against because of his hairstyle but the school district has told them they are just enforcing the rules.
“I wanna go to class, that’s all I want to do. Just get me out of ISS,” Darryl George told KPRC 2′s Deven Clarke.
The George family is now suing Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton. The lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order to stop Darryl’s in-school suspension while the case is in court.
It also alleges that Abbott and Paxton, in their official duties, failed to protect Darryl’s constitutional rights against discrimination and against violations of his freedom of speech and expression.
Darryl “should be permitted to wear his hair in the manner in which he wears it ... because the so-called neutral grooming policy has no close association with learning or safety and when applied, disproportionately impacts Black males,” Allie Booker, the family’s attorney, wrote in the lawsuit.
On the contrary, the school district filed its own lawsuit in state court asking a judge to clarify whether its dress code restrictions limiting student hair length for boys violates the CROWN Act.
Barbers Hill Superintendent Greg Poole has said he believes the dress code is legal and that it teaches students to conform as a sacrifice benefiting everyone.
A similar situation happened back in 2020 when a judge ruled that the Barbers Hill Independent School District’s dress code was discriminatory after two Black students were suspended over the length of their dreadlocks. That situation is what, in part, birthed the CROWN Act.
Deandre Arnold, who was a senior at the time, and his mother, Sandy, were then invited to attend the Oscars as guests of director Matthew A. Cherry, whose “Hair Love” was one of the front-runners for the Best Animated Short.
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