School officials say the student's dreadlocks fall below his eyebrows and ear lobes and violate the district’s dress code.

The family of a Black high school student in Texas on Saturday filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state’s governor and attorney general over his ongoing suspension by his school district for his hairstyle.

Darryl George, 17, a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, has been serving an in-school suspension since Aug. 31 at the Houston-area school. School officials say his dreadlocks fall below his eyebrows and ear lobes and violate the district’s dress code.

George’s mother, Darresha George, and the family’s attorney deny the teenager’s hairstyle violates the dress code, saying his hair is neatly tied in twisted dreadlocks on top of his head.

    • isthingoneventhis@lemmy.world
      141·
      9 months ago

      The American schooling system is basically formulated to prep you for a 9-5 job by simulating miserable working conditions, general misery, and the ever present threat of violence in some form or fashion.

      • blueskiesoc@lemmy.world
        8·
        9 months ago

        Not every state. This is Texas. I’m in California and my kid went to school with shoulder length hair that was half blue. My relatives in Texas kept asking what the school was doing about it. There’s nothing on the books about hair and the principal said it looked cool. Hair has always been a control issue in bible thumping communities, which I thankfully am no longer around.

        • affiliate@lemmy.world
          2·
          9 months ago

          i’ve never really understood why they get so uptight about hair color and dress codes in general. is it just to maintain uniformity and control because they’re scared of change?

          i’m not that stylish and personally don’t like the look of hair that’s dyed a color that doesn’t “show up naturally” (for lack of a better term), but it’s just my own personal taste and i think it’s important people are able to look and dress how they want. i also don’t like sports jerseys, but wouldn’t go around trying to ban those.

          but it seems like these people get offended when they see people dress a way they don’t like, and their gut reaction is to make rules forbidding it. why? it seems like a lot of work that ultimately makes everyone miserable, when it’s much less effort to just accept that people are different and move on.