A 130-page appeal has been filed in an attempt to overturn a court’s decision that backs up a Barbers Hill Independent School District policy, prohibiting a student from wearing his hair in a natural style on campus.
The student, Darryl George, who is entering his senior year in the district, and his family are currently engaged in a legal battle over the school district’s policy.
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In an interview with KPRC 2′s Rilwan Balogun, attorney Allie Booker shared that while she is disappointed the judge dismissed most of their argument, she saw an opening for discrimination based on gender.
In the appeal, Booker references it: “Because section 25.902 does not permit the District to invent a hair-length exception to the statute for any of its students nor interpret its silence as to hair length to undermine the statute’s clear purpose, the Court should reverse the Final Judgment’s holding that the Male Hair-Length Restriction ‘does not prohibit nor does it discriminate against male students who wear braids, loc[s], or twists” and render declaratory judgment in the Georges’ favor that the District’s Male Hair-Length Restriction violates Texas Education Code section 25.902,’” the appeal reads.
George was kept out of his regular high school classes for most of the 2023-24 school year when he was a junior because school officials said his hair length violated the district’s dress code. George either served in-school suspension at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu or spent time at an off-site disciplinary program.
Earlier this year on February 22, Chambers County Judge Chap B. Cain III ruled in favor of the school district, stating that the dress code prohibiting male students from having long hair did not violate the CROWN Act.
Since the court’s ruling, the George family and attorneys Dylan Drummond and Allie Booker have continued to argue that the punishment does indeed violate the CROWN Act.
The CROWN Act, which stands for Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, took effect on Sept. 1 of last year. The law prohibits school and employment dress codes or grooming policies from discriminating against hair texture or protective hairstyles associated with race.
The school district’s dress code specifies that male students cannot have hair that extends “below the eyebrows or below the ear lobes.” It also requires that boys’ hair must not fall “below the top of a T-shirt collar or be gathered or worn in a style that would allow the hair to extend below the top of a T-shirt collar, below the eyebrows, or below the ear lobes when let down.”
