After serving more than a month of in-school suspension over his dreadlocks, a Black student in Texas was told he will be removed from his high school and sent to a disciplinary alternative education program on Thursday.
Darryl George, 18, is a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu and has been suspended since Aug. 31. He will be sent to EPIC, an alternative school program, from Oct. 12 through Nov. 29 for “failure to comply” with multiple campus and classroom regulations, the principal said in a Wednesday letter provided to The Associated Press by the family.
Principal Lance Murphy wrote that George has repeatedly violated the district's “previously communicated standards of student conduct." The letter also says that George will be allowed to return to regular classroom instruction on Nov. 30 but will not be allowed to return to his high school's campus until then unless he's there to discuss his conduct with school administrators.
Barbers Hill Independent School District prohibits male students from having hair extending below the eyebrows, ear lobes or top of a T-shirt collar, according to the student handbook. Additionally, hair on all students must be clean, well-groomed, geometrical and not an unnatural color or variation. The school does not require uniforms.
George's mother, Darresha George, and the family's attorney deny the teenager's hairstyle violates the dress code. The family last month filed a formal complaint with the Texas Education Agency and a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state’s governor and attorney general, alleging they failed to enforce a new law outlawing discrimination based on hairstyles.
The family alleges George's suspension and subsequent discipline violate the state’s CROWN Act, which took effect Sept. 1. The law, an acronym for “Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” is intended to prohibit race-based hair discrimination and bars employers and schools from penalizing people because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including Afros, braids, dreadlocks, twists or Bantu knots.
A federal version passed in the U.S. House last year, but was not successful in the Senate.
The school district also filed a lawsuit in state district court asking a judge to clarify whether its dress code restrictions limiting student hair length for boys violates the CROWN Act. The lawsuit was filed in Chambers County, east of Houston.
George’s school previously clashed with two other Black male students over the dress code.
Barbers Hill officials told cousins De’Andre Arnold and Kaden Bradford they had to cut their dreadlocks in 2020. Their families sued the district in May 2020, and a federal judge later ruled the district’s hair policy was discriminatory. Their pending case helped spur Texas lawmakers to approve the state’s CROWN Act. Both students withdrew from the school, with Bradford returning after the judge’s ruling.
link: https://www.aol.com/news/black-student-suspended-over-hairstyle-220842177.html
What a shithole.
Hope he gets into a college as far away as possible.
It's baffling to me, that the US always claims to be the champion of freedom, but runs most of their education like part-time prison camps. My school here in Germany didn't give a crap about anyone's appearance. If you're street legal, you're fine in school.
Well, it’s because they have to prepare us for prison as an adult. Wait until you find out that American schools are largely funded by property taxes. Which means rich neighborhoods that pay more in property taxes have generally way better schools than poor neighborhoods.
The United States is like a villain from a scooby doo episode. In every episode the “monster” is a person of color, or illegal immigrant, or an LGBTQ person. But when they catch the “monster” and pull its mask off. It’s old man US government every god damn time.
That's because you were raised to be a functioning member of society with enough tools to potentially succeed or excel.
They were raised to fail upward while grifting and scamming on the side while fighting for the opportunity to be a wageslave and entering a lottery to be successful. Or risk prison and become an actual slave as allowed in their constitution.
Ooh! I've got a thing about this!
In an Episode of the Youtube series Under the Blacklight, David Blight, a Yale professor brought something up that I think brings the American idea of "freedom" into a different context. He says “This whole new idea of what’s liberty and liberty for whom, can also kill. Especially when it replaces the idea of Liberty as that which has to be shared in some kind of common good.”
The idea isn't really new and is actually deeply rooted in America's past through to it's creation. Freedom should be a group concept in which we maximize freedom for the populace. Instead it's seen as individual freedom only. When you combine this with the idea that freedom is the most important thing, it results in people coming to the conclusion that they are justified in anything in the process of attaining what they want. And they'll use whatever tools they have available to attain this in as straight a path as they can.
America has always been a champion of personal freedom, whatever they say. It's founding was about a bunch of business men who didn't want to pay taxes so they staged a rebellion. There's still a heavy bent against taxes with the main argument being people don't want the government to have any power, but really it's because individuals just want to keep their money while disregarding the ways in which that money would improve the good for all people. At it's core America is a Selfish nation built of selfishness and getting yours before someone else takes it.
It gets more a little complicated when talking about motives of those in power, but boils down to the same, and they retain that power primarily by banging the "personal freedoms" drum.
To quote famed Discworld philosopher Granny Weatherwax,
"There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That's what sin is." "It's a lot more complicated than that--" "No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts." "Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes--" "But they starts with thinking about people as things..."
Thank you for coming to my TED talk
I generally agree that that freedom in the US is mostly seen as 'my personal right to do anything I want'.
But that's exactly what is being restricted here. An individual's personal freedom to wear the hairstyle they want.
So how does that explain the restrictiveness of US schools?
Because it's bad even by our standards.
Because that individual doesn't have the power to enforce their personal freedom. The Principal does have the power to enforce their idea of what the "correct" look is. The principal isn't concerned about raising conditions for the group in actuality, they just want reality to conform to their idea of what they desire it to be. For them, it's within their rights to their own freedom to bring everything that makes them uncomfortable to heel. Anything that they don't like is an affront to their personal freedom to make everyone do what they want.
Please shut the fuck up with this "but the US is big" excuse for every single topic, it doesn't explain or excuse anything at all
Except my public school growing up tried a uniform as well. Stop making excuses, this isn't a black swan event this is the mole that suggests cancer.
This doesn't make a lot of sense in context, sure Texas has twice the land of Germany, but Germany has 2.5 times the population of Texas.
Though I agree Texas is likely not representative of all the USA.
So, Germany has the population of Texas + Florida + Georgia? Doesn’t sound that large.
I'm hearing these and similar stories from all over the country.
It's not just about schools, either, but also colleges and education in general. And if you think about it, a lot of life too. Jaywalking for example. That's a crime that simply does not exist elsewhere.
Man this is one school run by just a few people, all it takes is one goofy bastard to suspend a student. This isn't an "US" issue
Yeah, because this is the one case where this happened. Never before and nowhere else.
US motherfuckers celebrating being better than an actual war zone
A lot of the US is like that tho
My school had a uniform for about two years before they gave up on it. Of course, like everything else they did, they failed to plan.
Tell that to the French who ban all religious symbols
Good, religion has no place on a public education setting.
Not relevant. You don't have less rights to free expression when skydaddy is involved.
Except skydaddy psychos think they do have more rights to impose their rules and beliefs over others, which is an active attack to other's rights. So no, on publicly funded institutions, skydaddy has no place and shouldn't be allowed in.
Really? Did you interview each and every single one? I was a theist and I had zero interest in doing that.
Sorry you don't believe in freedom of expression
Get out of here with your stupid “freedumb of eshpreshon!” Separation of church and state is a pillar of democratic, tolerant and peaceful societies. That means, no religion in public schools. No one is stopping anyone from being as religious and practice whatever they want in their home, or even in public on the street. But as soon as they put a feet on a publicly funded institution, they must abide by the law above all. Not the mandates of their imaginary friend. Freedom of expression doesn't mean free from public responsibility.