A school district in Texas has targeted indigenous communities and people of color by prohibiting boys from having long hair.
The 'long hair' ban has been implemented by the Magnolia Independent School District in the northwest of Houston, Texas.
This schooling district has a registry of around 13,000 pupils, with many of them around the age of 7 to about 17-years old.
They recently came under fire after some of the pupils hit the district with a lawsuit over this lengthy hair ban, which is obviously targeting indigenous communities.
This ban is in no doubt aimed at indigenous youth, seeing as they are the ones who usually wear their hair long, and for generations, it has always been kept that way.
In most cases, black boys have an afro, or long dreadlocks, with some having spirals and these hairstyles are primarily intrinsic to people of color.
Many mixed or biracial kids (if not all) also ten to hair long cursive as well, given their maternal roots, only a small portion keeps their hair short.
Another thing to point out is that the hairstyles for boys from Gen-Zs are generally long, and one can tell that this is trendy and makes a lot of them stay true to their roots.
What are the merits of this lawsuit? And what are students arguing?
According to a report from the Washington Post, the rule requires that male students' hair must be "no longer than the bottom of a dress shirt collar, bottom of the ear, and out of the eyes".
The schooling district also swears by this rule that it is in line with the rest of their policies across the entire state of Texas public schools.
Parents raised their issues with the district, which were acknowledged, and the district said it was reviewing their complaints. Clearly, they are waiting for the backlash from the media before they can act.
Pupils that are suing the school allege that the hair-ban is more "gender-based" and that the stereotypes supporting it violates the Constitution.
They pointed out that the policy is not even applied equally, saying that some boys are allowed to wear long hair, which goes against this policy that has been set.
Failure to obey this rule has seen many pupils punished through suspensions and being sanctioned from attending classes for weeks.
Some teachers allegedly cut deadlocks of some black kids because they were "untidy," hence students ended up banding together to take legal action.
This is an unfortunate thing, and one might even say that it reeks of systematic racism because the ban will primarily affect minorities. These are children, and they should be allowed to grow their hair.
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