By: Aswad Walker
https://defendernetwork.com/
In spite of the CROWN Act being signed into law in Texas last year for the specific purpose of protecting people, especially Black people, from hair discrimination, Barbers Hill ISD faced multiple disciplinary actions for wearing his hair the way it was designed to naturally grow out of his head.
George and family will have their day in court as a Houston-area judge, Judge Chap B. Cain III, scheduled a bench trial for Feb. 22 to hear arguments about whether Barbers Hill ISD is violating the CROWN Act that prohibits race-based hair discrimination in public schools.
The Backstory
George, an 18-year-old Black student at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, has refused to cut his dreadlocks in spite of being suspended, sent to an alternative school, and upon return to his campus, suspended again.
School district officials claim George is violating a hair-length policy they say is not covered by the CROWN Act, which took effect Sept. 1. The Barbers Hill ISD superintendent, Greg Poole, even invested money in purchasing a full-page ad in the Jan. 14, 2024 edition of the Houston Chronicle in a move some view as an attempt to bully George and family into submission.
In the article, Poole stated, “Being an American requires conformity.” However, George and family are asserting that Poole and Barbers Hill ISD officials are refusing to “conform” to Texas law.
CROWN Act Protections
Moreover, the two state legislators who jointly authored the law say it was passed to protect students such as George and hairstyles such as his, which he keeps twisted up in a short length that does not hang below his neck. Still, George has been reprimanded for breaking this dress code rule even though, by the Barbers Hill metrics, he is not breaking it at all.
“I wrote the CROWN Act, I filed it, to stop exactly the kind of discrimination that we are seeing right here in Barbers Hill ISD,” state Rep. Rhetta Bowers, a Democrat from the Dallas area, said during a news conference outside a Chambers County courthouse. “Barbers Hill ISD is punishing Darryl George for one reason: his choice to wear his hair in a protective style, which harms no one and causes no distraction in the classroom.”
Though known nationally for being a conservative-leaning state, Texas is one of 24 states to pass a version of the CROWN Act, an acronym for “Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.” The law, which protects students and employees at state-funded institutions from discrimination based on hairstyles such as Afros, Bantu knots, braids, locs, and twists, is extremely relevant in the Lone Star State as it is home to more Blacks than any other state in the nation.
Barbers Hill Has a History
If Barbers Hill sounds familiar, it may be because in 2020 then Barbers Hill High School students De’Andre Arnold and Kaden Bradford filed a federal civil rights lawsuit after they were told to cut their dreadlocks by school-district officials. And though their case is still pending, a federal judge found the district’s grooming policy at the time to be discriminatory while issuing a temporary injunction.
The Arnold/Bradford case was one of the main reasons why Bowers and the law’s co-author, state Rep. Ron Reynolds of Missouri City, sought to make the CROWN Act Texas law.
Lawsuits
George’s mother, Darresha George, filed another federal civil rights lawsuit in the fall against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, asking them to enforce the new state law on behalf of her son.
Barbers Hill ISD also filed a lawsuit in the fall, in a state district court in Chambers County, asking a judge to clarify the CROWN Act as it pertains to the school’s hair-length policy for boys.
Allie Booker, a Houston attorney representing the George family, previously filed a motion for declaratory judgment, a temporary restraining order and an injunction to prevent Barbers Hill ISD from keeping Darryl George out of a regular class setting while the case progresses.
Current Situation
George, who is currently serving an in-school suspension for a “failure to comply,” has been in either in-school suspension or a disciplinary alternative education program since Aug. 31 – spending over 80% of his junior year outside of his normal classroom.
The junior year is when students traditionally take the SAT or ACT and engage in other college prep activities, like gathering student/administrator recommendations to submit with their applications for college.
“They have many people out here on drugs, doing God knows what, but then you have a child that actually wants to do right, and y’all still pick with him over hair,” Darresha George said of the school district. “Then y’all tell me, ‘Oh, just cut it. Take him out of school.’ Why? That’s my question. Why? For what? This is him. This is his identity. Why take that from him?”
“Who needs to conform is Barbers Hill ISD,” Booker said. “This is about Greg Poole. This entire thing is about Greg Poole. It’s about Greg Poole and how he feels about someone telling him what to do. He doesn’t think he has to follow the law.
“You are the one breaking the law, Greg Poole,” Booker added. “You are the one breaking the law, Barbers Hill ISD.”
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