Why the US needs the CROWN Act

A Texas lawsuit has renewed discourse over race-based hair discrimination

Colorful overlapping silhouettes of African American women.
Many states have enacted hair discrimination laws, but the CROWN Act itself is stalled at a national level
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The family of a Black high school student in Texas has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and the state's attorney general after the student was suspended for over three weeks for wearing his hair in a style that school officials say violated the district's dress code. Darryl George, a 17-year-old junior at Barbers Hill High School, has been serving multiple in-school suspensions since Aug. 31 because of his locs, NPR reported. School officials say George's hairstyle violates the dress code for male students because his hair falls below his eyebrows and ear lobes, while the lawsuit argues that the suspension is in violation of the CROWN Act, a recently enacted state law that prohibits hair discrimination. George was suspended right before the law went into effect on Sept. 1. 

The teen and his mother, Darresha George, are seeking a temporary restraining order and an injunction against Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton in hopes they will stop the school district from exposing its "students to disciplinary punishment and disciplinary measures due to locs, braid, twists and other protective styles that are alleged to be or that are longer than the District or schools' length requirement," per the lawsuit. The case has renewed interest in efforts to enact hair discrimination laws on a national level.

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Theara Coleman, The Week US

Theara Coleman has worked as a staff writer at The Week since September 2022. She frequently writes about technology, education, literature and general news. She was previously a contributing writer and assistant editor at Honeysuckle Magazine, where she covered racial politics and cannabis industry news.