A federal judge in Houston dismissed most of the claims in a lawsuit filed by a Black high school student who alleged racial and gender discrimination after he was punished for refusing to change his hairstyle. This ruling marks a significant victory for the Barbers Hill school district, which defends its policy of restricting hair length for male students as a means to instill discipline and teach grooming and respect for authority.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, however, expressed skepticism about whether the school district’s policy truly serves the students’ best interests. “Not everything that is undesirable, annoying, or even harmful amounts to a violation of the law, much less a constitutional problem,” Brown wrote in his order.
The Associated Press reached out to the school district and George’s attorney, Allie Booker, for comment, but no responses were recorded as of Tuesday.
The student at the center of the case, identified as George, 18, faced significant disruptions to his education during the 2023-24 school year after the district contended that his long hair violated its dress code. George’s typical school day shifted to in-school suspension at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu or time spent at an off-site disciplinary program.
The district’s policy classifies George’s tied and twisted locs as a violation because, if let down, his hair would fall below his shirt collar, eyebrows, or earlobes. The district maintains that other students with similar hairstyles comply with the length policy.
George and his mother, Darresha George, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the school district, the district superintendent, his principal, and assistant principal, as well as Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton. They argued that George’s punishment violated the CROWN Act—a new state law that took effect in September and prohibits race-based hair discrimination. The CROWN Act prevents employers and schools from penalizing individuals based on hair texture or protective hairstyles, including Afros, braids, locs, twists, and Bantu knots.
Despite the CROWN Act, Judge Brown ruled that George did not demonstrate a “persistent, widespread practice of disparate, race-based enforcement of the policy.” Additionally, the claim that George’s First Amendment rights to free speech were dismissed as his lawyer could not find case law supporting hair length as “protected expressive conduct under the First Amendment.”
Various claims regarding the violation of George’s due process rights under the 14th Amendment were also dismissed, and figures such as Abbott, Paxton, the district superintendent, and other school employees were dropped from the case. The only surviving claim involves sex discrimination, based on the school district’s lack of clear policies justifying why girls could have long hair while boys could not. Judge Brown stated, “Because the district does not provide any reason for the sex-based distinctions in its dress code, the claim survives this initial stage.”
Earlier in the year, a state judge ruled that the school district’s punishment of George did not violate the CROWN Act. Judge Brown referenced a 1970 case where an El Paso judge ruled against a school district that prohibited a male student from enrolling because of hair length. That decision was later overturned by an appeals court. Brown quoted the El Paso judge: “the presence and enforcement of the hair-cut rule causes far more disruption of the classroom instructional process than the hair it seeks to prohibit,” adding, “Regrettably, so too here.”
The Barbers Hill hair policy faced a similar challenge in 2020 when two other students filed a federal lawsuit. One student returned to the school after a federal judge issued a temporary injunction, suggesting a “substantial likelihood” his rights to free speech and freedom from racial discrimination would be violated if barred from school. This lawsuit remains pending.
