A US judge has Rejected a request by a black Texas student to seek an injunction to protect him from punishment at his high school for his hairstyle. Authorities suspended 19-year-old Darryl George last August because his dreadlocks violated the dress code. George had asked U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown for a temporary restraining order to allow him to return to his Houston-area school while a federal lawsuit over his suspension continues. But in his ruling on Friday, Judge Brown said the school had waited too long to seek the injunction and denied the request.
Since his senior year at Barbers Hill High School began in August 2023, he has been disciplined several times for refusing to cut his hair. The school district pointed to a dress code that requires hair to "not extend above the collar of a T-shirt, below the eyebrows or below the earlobes when down." But George refused to cut his braided dreadlocks, which his family cited for their cultural significance in the black community. He was expelled and suspended from school and then had to attend after-school programs. "He has to sit in a chair in a private room for eight hours," his mother told The Associated Press last year. "It's very uncomfortable. Every day when I come home, I say my back hurts because I have to sit on a chair." This year, George returned to the same school. But George's lawyer said last month that school administrators suspended George on the first and second days of the new school year, which began in August, forcing George to be unenrolled and transferred to another school. Texas judge upholds suspension of student for wearing dreadlocks Why are black Americans punished for their hair? The federal lawsuit filed by George and his mother is still ongoing. George argues his sentence violates the Crown Act, a new provincial law that bans racial discrimination based on hair. The law, which takes effect in September 2023, prohibits employers and schools from disciplining people based on their hair texture or protective hairstyles, such as dreadlocks. In February, a provincial judge ruled that his sentence did not violate the Crown Act.
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