Parents and School Tangle Over Waldorf Tot's Locks
Boy, 3, Suspended From Private Academy

By Megan Greenwell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 24, 2007

Nobody raised concern about Jayce Brown's short, floppy dreadlocks when he enrolled at the Southern Maryland Christian Academy in White Plains in August. And no one said anything during the 3-year-old's first month at the school. So his parents said they were surprised to receive a phone call last month telling them the locks had to go.

"It came out of nowhere, and they were telling me I had to cut it right away," said Danielle Brown, Jayce's mother. The toddler's school picture -- which shows a bright-eyed child grinning widely, tongue poking through his teeth -- had alerted school administrators that his hairstyle violated official school policy for boys, which forbids "extreme faddish hairstyles, including the use of rubber bands or the 'twisting' of hair."

"I told them it sounded a little bit extreme, and I offered to pull his hair back in a ponytail, but they said no locks," Brown said.

Jayce's parents refused to cut his hair, and he was suspended indefinitely. Now the Browns are preparing to file a lawsuit against the school alleging that the policy discriminates against African American boys.

The controversy over Jayce's hairstyle has infuriated many African Americans in Charles County, who see his suspension as an assault on their ability to express their ethnic identity. Experts say that, combined with recent battles over facial hair, Sikh turbans and tattoos in the workplace, the case is part of a broader cultural debate over the public significance of personal appearance, especially in such rapidly diversifying areas as Charles.

"From our perspective, for African Americans, the twisting of hair is not faddish or trendy but is a legitimate cultural expression, and so the ban on natural styles is discriminatory," said the Browns' attorney, Ardra M. O'Neal.

Danielle Brown, who chose Southern Maryland Christian Academy because it offers classes that incorporate the Christian-based A Beka curriculum, said Jayce had thrived at the school, forming a particularly close bond with his teacher. Although there were only a handful of other African American preschoolers, she never felt unwelcome during Jayce's first several weeks at school, she said.

Southern Maryland Christian Academy's headmaster, Colleen Gaines, declined to discuss the situation or make the school's attorney available for questions. In an $1,800 full-page advertisement in a community newspaper Oct. 24, school officials wrote that there is no legal precedent for a lawsuit against the school.

"As a condition of enrollment, SMCA parents and students agree to abide by all SMCA policies, including the school grooming policy," says the ad, which is unsigned but which Gaines said represents her position on the matter. "Private schools, like private employers, have the right to create and enforce a grooming policy."

The school, which requires students to wear uniforms, also bans dyed hair and states that "traditional and conservative tapered cuts are the standard." Older students are expected to be clean-shaven, and girls are not allowed to wear large earrings or more than two necklaces.

Danielle Brown said she does not object to the school's right to maintain regulations on hair length or color, but she said wearing dreadlocks is an integral part of her family's African heritage. She and her husband wear dreadlocks, as do their siblings.

Noliwe M. Rooks, a professor of African American studies at Princeton University who has written extensively about the cultural importance of black hairstyles, said the history of dreadlocks can be traced to the Bible, which instructs followers not to comb or cut their hair. Although dreadlocks were once associated primarily with Rastafarians, some of whom believe that cutting or styling their hair violates God's will, they are no longer strictly associated with the religion.

"In the U.S., more often it's an affirmation of an ancestry and identity to allow your hair to do what it does in its natural state," Rooks said. "That makes it difficult to think of locks as a fad."

Rooks said personal appearance cases such as the Browns' are most common in areas with changing demographics, where longtime white residents might not be used to seeing people with different ways of expressing themselves. Charles has the fastest-growing black population of any area in the country except the Atlanta suburbs, census data show. Although the county has a majority-black public school system, white students are a strong majority at most of its private schools -- including Southern Maryland Christian Academy. Gaines declined to provide demographic information about the student body.

"I know it's culture shock for some people down here," said Brown, whose family moved to Waldorf from Alexandria three years ago. "There are still people who look at us like we're not from here."

Since the dispute between the Browns and the school became public, the family has received hate mail from other residents. One letter said African Americans are "ruining Waldorf" and instructed them to "go back" to the District and Prince George's County.

Brown said she has been disheartened by some of the reaction but said she plans to continue fighting what she thinks is a discriminatory policy. Legal experts said, however, that she probably will face an uphill battle in court. Because hairstyle is commonly considered a choice, unlike skin color, past plaintiffs have had difficulty convincing federal judges that they were the victims of discrimination. And Maryland anti-discrimination laws do not apply to private schools.

Last winter, Baltimore police agreed to change a policy that prohibited cornrows and dreadlocks. A handful of court decisions dealing with hairstyles have led to mixed results: A federal judge ruled in 1991 that American Airlines could fire an employee who did not comply with a ban on cornrows, but decisions from lower courts have ruled in favor of plaintiffs.

David Rocah, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, said, "I don't disagree with [Brown] that specific prohibitions on locked hair or twisted hair have a racially disparate impact, but I can't think of a specific law that would cover her."

In the newspaper advertisement, Southern Maryland Christian Academy administrators said that they hope the case does not go to trial but that they are confident they would win if it did. Meanwhile, Jayce is attending another Christian preschool in White Plains that has no restrictions on hairstyle.

"He has no idea what happened, but he keeps asking when he's going to see his old teacher again," Brown said. "I don't really know what to tell him."