This year, the hottest trend in education is discrimination and it seems to be taking over.
Last week netizens learned the disturbing story of
a young Florida boy who wasn't allowed to attend his first day of school because he had dreads. This week the trend hopped the border into Louisiana where a school sent a young girl home because she didn't have natural hair. Nevermind the purely arbitrary nature of these policies, they also disproportionately affect African-American students who use these styles as a way to make their hair more manageable and stylish. Video of the most recent case shows a young student named
Faith, dressed in her school uniform, crying and gathering her belongings, as her relatives plead with school officials not to send her home. In the background, a school administrator can be heard saying, "I don't want this to happen." Clearly, that isn't the case. According to the girl's relative, the school only told them about the new policy that stipulates: — "extensions, wigs, hairpieces of any kind are not allowed" — the first day of school.
Faith and her family had no idea. She has been attending
Christ the King Elementary School in Terrytown for two years with the same hairstyle and now, from one day to the next, it's a problem. What's more,
instead of allowing her to finish the day at school with a warning, administrators decided to humiliate her publically.As Teen Vogue says:
"Unequal policies such as these have led black girls to feel insecure and humiliated about their physical appearance, and subsequently can affect their ability to learn and feel comfortable in academic environments." A student's hairstyle, especially something as harmless as extensions, doesn't negatively affect their ability to learn or participate in class, but punishing them because of their chosen style can, in fact, have those unwanted effects.
This nonsense must end, they only serve to "otherize" and discriminate.
Please sign the petition and ask school administrators at Christ the King Elementary School in Terrytown, Louisiana to change their discriminatory hair policy and start focusing on what's important — their students' education, not their hair.