GALVESTON, Texas — Stifled by a standardized dress code, April Barton said she chose to express herself by coloring her hair pink, green, blue, purple and yellow.

Jennifer Reynolds / Galveston County Daily News

April Barton, right, said Ball High administrators told her to lose her colorful hairstyle or face punishment. Her friend, Vanessa Sliter, has dyed her hair to get rid of the fuchsia streaks.

But administrators at Ball High School in Galveston think her rainbow-striped hair is too distracting and therefore a nuisance, Barton said. They’ve asked Barton to dye her hair a natural color or face punishment, although they didn’t specify what the consequences might be, Barton said.

Vanessa Sliter, a 10th-grader at Ball High School and Barton’s friend, said she dyed her hair back to black after administrators told her she couldn’t return to campus until some fuchsia streaks were gone.

Other students also claim administrators are telling students with colorful hair to dye it back to a normal tone.

Ball High School Principal Dean Blair did not return calls seeking comment.

The high school’s standardized dress code does not prohibit colored hair, but it does give administrators the option of banning things they deem distracting.

Of hair, the code states only that it should be neat and clean, but it also says that “items that are distracting are strictly prohibited.”

The strict dress code, which restricts students to wearing only polo shirts or “spirit” shirts, gave Barton little way to express herself except to color her hair, she said.

“To have my hair dyed shows my creativity,” she said.

But Barton would he hard-pressed to find a local public school OK with her sherbet-inspired ’do.

All other area districts ban unnaturally colored hair, or hair colored in a way that it poses health or safety hazards and disrupts instruction.

According to the U.S. Supreme Court Fourth Court of Appeals rulings, hairstyles that are unsafe or unclean can be banned.

In 1972, male students at Tuscola Senior High School in North Carolina were suspended for refusing to trim their long hair. In the case, Massie v. Henry, the court ruled that, even though the students’ long hair was disruptive, the “disruptive effect ... was insufficient to justify the regulation and its enforcement.”

“There is little merit in conformity for the sake of conformity and that one may exercise a personal right in the manner that he chooses so long as he does not run afoul of considerations of safety, cleanliness and decency,” the ruling states.

The American Civil Liberties Union has maintained students have the right to color and style their hair any way they want.

In December, a Rhode Island chapter of the group asked a school committee in Portsmouth to reverse an “unwritten policy” barring a high school senior from mentoring students because of her purple hair, according to statements from the American Civil Liberties Union.

A Virginia chapter of the group in April 2002 successfully petitioned officials at Norview Middle School in Virginia to allow a blue-haired sixth-grader to return to class after he was told he couldn’t come back to school until his hair was returned to its natural color, according to the group.

In 1999, the group represented a student from Surry County High School in Virginia after he was suspended for dying his hair blue. A federal district judge in Richmond ordered the school to reinstate the student and pay the union’s lawyers $25,000 in court costs, the group states.

The crackdown on colored hair is part of Blair’s promise to start consistently enforcing rules at Ball High School. In the first week of school, Blair promised to crack down on the school’s dress codes and cell phone policy.

But many students aren’t happy with the changes. Morgan Glenn, a senior at Ball High School, said while Blair has made some changes for the better, the rule against colored hair is unfair.

“Like Hitler, we all might as well have blond hair and blue eyes,” Glenn said.

April Barton is confused at why school officials are now making a fuss about her hair. Since she was in sixth grade in Galveston public schools, April Barton has dyed her hair pink, purple, orange, blue, red and green.

Barton’s mother, Kristin Barton, said school administrators’ persistence that her daughter dye her hair a normal color is making April Barton miserable.

“She comes home every day and says how much she hates school,” she said. “She’s never been like that.”