Judge dismisses most claims in federal lawsuit filed by Black Texas student punished over hairstyle
HOUSTON — A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed most of the claims in a lawsuit filed by a black high school student who alleged that school officials discriminated against him on the basis of race and gender when they punished him for refusing to change his hairstyle.
The ruling was another victory in a lawsuit for the Barbers Hill school district near Houston, which argues that its policy of limiting the length of male students’ hair teaches discipline while also teaching them to groom their children and show respect for authority.
But in his command, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown wondered whether the school district’s rule does more harm than good.
“Not everything that is unwanted, annoying, or even harmful amounts to a violation of law, much less a constitutional problem,” Brown wrote.
The Associated Press left telephone and email messages seeking comment Tuesday with the school district and George’s attorney, Allie Booker.
George, 18, was kept out of his regular high school classes for most of the 2023-2024 school year, when he was a junior, because the school district said his hair length violated the dress code. George also served a suspension from school at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu or spent time in an out-of-school disciplinary program.
The district has argued that George’s long hair, which he wears to school in tied and twisted locs on top of his head, violates policy because it would fall below his shirt collar, eyebrows or earlobes if left loose. The district has said other students with locs comply with the length policy.
George and his mother, Darresha George, filed a petition federal civil rights lawsuit last year against the school district, the district’s superintendent, its principal and vice principal, as well as Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The lawsuit also alleged that George’s sentence violated the CROWN Acta new state law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race. The CROWN Act, which was debated before the George’s hair dispute and went into effect in September, prohibits employers and schools from punishing people because of hair texture or protective styles, including afros, braids, locs, twists or Bantu knots.
The lawsuit alleged that the school district’s policy was enforced primarily on black students. But Brown said George had not demonstrated a “persistent, widespread practice of disparate, race-based enforcement of the policy.”
The lawsuit also alleged that George’s First Amendment rights to free speech were violated. But Brown wrote that George’s attorney could not cite any case law that holds that hair length “is protected as expressive conduct under the First Amendment.”
Brown dismissed several claims that George’s due process rights under the 14th Amendment were violated. He also removed Abbott, Paxton, the district superintendent and other school officials from the case.
The only complaint he allowed to stand was an allegation of sex discrimination, based on the school district’s lack of a clear policy about why girls were allowed to have long hair and boys were not.
“Because the district provides no rationale for the gender-based distinctions in the dress code, the claim stands at this initial stage,” Brown said.
Brown’s order comes after a a state judge ruled in February in a lawsuit filed by the school district, which argues the punishment does not violate the CROWN Act.
At the end of his ruling, Brown highlighted a 1970 case in which a judge ruled against an El Paso, Texas, school district that had tried to block a male student from enrolling because his hair length violated district policy. The El Paso judge’s ruling was later overturned by an appeals court.
The judge in the El Paso case had written that “the presence and enforcement of the haircut rule causes far more disruption to the educational process in the classroom than the hair it seeks to prohibit.”
“Unfortunately, that’s the case here as well,” Brown said of George’s case.
Barbers Hill’s hair policy was also challenged in a federal lawsuit filed in May 2020 by two other students. Both withdrew from the high school, but one returned after a federal judge granted a temporary injunction, saying there was “a substantial likelihood” that his rights to free speech and to be free from racial discrimination would be violated if he were suspended. That lawsuit is still pending.
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