A young African American student in Texas has made the difficult decision to leave his school district after facing punishment for his hairstyle throughout his junior year, his attorney has revealed. Rather than endure another year of in-school suspension, the student has chosen to seek education elsewhere.
Darryl George, 18, is seeking to go back to his high school in the Barbers Hill school district for his senior year. He has requested a temporary restraining order from a federal judge to stop district officials from imposing further penalties on him due to his refusal to cut his hair. If granted, this order would enable him to resume attending school while his ongoing federal lawsuit moves forward.
George has made this request following the dismissal of most of the claims in the federal lawsuit filed by the student and his mother. The lawsuit alleged that school district officials had engaged in racial and gender discrimination when they administered punishment.
The judge allowed the gender discrimination claim to proceed and raised concerns about the potential negative impacts of the school district’s hair length rule.
George expressed his plea to Judge Brown in an affidavit filed last month, seeking assistance to enable him to attend school like any other teenager during the ongoing legal proceedings.
A court hearing has been scheduled by Brown on October 3 in Galveston, in response to George’s request.
The district stands by its dress code, asserting that its policies for students aim to educate them about grooming and hygiene, foster discipline, maintain order, prevent safety risks, and teach them to respect authority.
According to court documents filed recently, Allie Booker, one of George’s attorneys, stated that the student had no choice but to leave Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu and enroll in another high school in a different Houston area district. This decision was made after Barbers Hill officials subjected him to in-school suspension on the first and second day of the new school year, which started last month.
Booker said that the incident caused him significant emotional distress, which ultimately led to a nervous breakdown. Consequently, they had no option but to remove him from the school environment.
Throughout the 2023-24 school year, George, a junior at the time, found himself excluded from his regular high school classes. The school district deemed his hair length to be a violation of their dress code, leaving George with two options: in-school suspension or attendance at an off-site disciplinary program.
The district has claimed that George’s long hair, styled in tied and twisted locs on top of his head, violates its policy as it would exceed the length limits if let down, falling below his shirt collar, eyebrows, or earlobes. The district has asserted that other students with locs adhere to the length policy.
George’s federal lawsuit also claimed that his punishment goes against the CROWN Act, a state law aimed at preventing racial discrimination based on hair. The CROWN Act, which was already under consideration before the controversy surrounding George’s hair, came into effect in September 2023. This law prohibits employers and schools from penalizing individuals based on their hair texture or protective hairstyles, such as Afros, braids, locs, twists, or Bantu knots.
In February, a state judge made a ruling in a lawsuit filed by the school district, stating that their punishment does not violate the CROWN Act.
Barbers Hill faced a legal challenge to its hair policy when two students filed a federal lawsuit in May 2020. Although both students eventually withdrew from the high school, one of them returned after a federal judge issued a temporary injunction. The judge believed that there was a strong possibility that the student’s rights to free speech and freedom from racial discrimination would be violated if he was denied entry. The outcome of this lawsuit is still pending
