MONT BELVIEU, Texas — The battle over a Barbers Hill ISD student's hair heated up Wednesday with both sides taking legal action.
The mother of the student at Barbers Hill High School said her son is being wrongly punished by the school for his hair length.
Darryl George, 17, said the Barbers Hill ISD teen was suspended again this week over the length of his hair. His family said the suspension goes against Texas’s new CROWN Act, which protects against certain hair-based discrimination.
Attorneys representing the family have told KHOU 11 News they filed a formal complaint with the school. We received those documents late Tuesday night. The family also said they have contacted Child Protective Services and CPS has confirmed they are investigating.
Barbers Hill ISD isn't backing down despite national attention on the controversy. They don't believe the length of hair is covered by the CROWN Act, and they filed a declaratory judgment lawsuit Wednesday asking for court clarification.
"The district’s grooming policy, which does not prohibit male students from wearing braids, locks, or twists, does have male hair length requirements. The CROWN Act itself does not mention hair length and the sponsor of the act has publicly confirmed that the act was never intended to prohibit grooming (policies) that limit hair length," the district said in a statement.
“Although we believe the new law does not govern hair length, we are asking the judicial system of Texas to interpret,” Barbers Hill Superintendent Greg Poole said.
Darresha George, Darryl's mother, said it doesn't make sense either way because he always wears his hair up so length shouldn't be an issue.
“They said that when let down, his hair is below his eyebrows, which they’ve never seen his hair let down, because as you can see from pictures, from all the pictures, his hair is always up," Darresha said.
She said Darryl was first given a two-week suspension on August 31. When he returned to school on Monday, he was suspended again and forced to sit on a stool in a cubicle for eight hours.
Darresha insisted her son did nothing wrong.
“He’s going to go to school every day. He’s going to go to school in dress code, not violating a dress code. And we’re just going to have to take it one day at a time, one step at a time," Darresha said.
Barbers Hill ISD is no stranger to controversy over this issue. Its 2020 suspension of DeAndre Arnold for the length of his locks led to the CROWN Act. The law prohibiting race-based hair discrimination in Texas workplaces and schools was passed overwhelmingly and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott.
The law itself does not mention length but says "protective hairstyle" includes braids, locks and twists.
State Sen. Borris Miles called the district's actions "discriminatory."
“I am calling for Barbers Hill ISD to remove Darryl George from in-school suspension and to revise their dress code to come into compliance with the CROWN Act," Miles said in a statement. "It is unbelievable that the district whose discriminatory actions led to the creation of the CROWN Act is the first to defy the new law."
"Claiming that Darryl is violating a hair length policy is simply a backdoor method to continue discriminating against students with natural hair. The bipartisan CROWN Act passed the Legislature overwhelmingly and is now the law of this state. It’s time for Barbers Hill ISD to comply with the law.”
The district said they are not in conflict with the CROWN Act in this case and they released this statement on Tuesday:
The Barbers Hill ISD Dress and Grooming Code permits protective hairstyles, but any hairstyle must be in conformity with the requirement that male students’ hair will not extend, at any time, below the eyebrows or below the ear lobes. Further, male students’ hair must not extend below the top of a t-shirt collar or be gathered or worn in a style that would allow the hair to extend below the top of a t-shirt collar, below the eyebrows, or below the ear lobes when let down. Accordingly, protective hairstyles are permitted, but must still comply with the Dress and Grooming Code.
State Rep. Rhetta Bowers, who authored the CROWN Act legislation in Texas, has made it clear in a recent media interview that hair length and color are not protected under the CROWN Act.
“It’s strongly about protective styles. That’s what we need to know. It’s not about length, and it's not about color of hair," Bowers said in the interview.