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

  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    My school here in Germany didn’t give a crap about anyone’s appearance.

    Tell that to the French who ban all religious symbols

      • random65837@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Wrong, religion has no place being TAUGHT in a public education setting, a student wearing a religious symbol should 100% be allowed to. That’s literally what religious freedom is, kinda one of our founding principles. Don’t confuse religious freedom with the separation of church and state.

        • dustyData@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            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

            • dustyData@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              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.

              • random65837@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Funny, aside from clearly not understanding what the separation of church and state is, now you’re going on about abiding by the law above all, yet above calling just that a racist agenda.

              • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                People on this site: no one has any right to tell me what to do unless they explain the rule and I agree at that moment. If I change my mind the rule changes. I am a free person and my whims veto any law.

                Also people on this site: fuck this person for wanting to quitely decide what clothing to wear.