Should Employers Be Allowed To Discriminate Over Hair?

New group seeks to change discrimination laws to protect hair status.

I have a complicated relationship with my hair. Understand, I come from a “respectability politics” tradition — basically the assumption that if I looked and acted as traditionally “white” as possible, white people would leave me be. Obviously, I’ve changed. And my hair has changed right along with me. I’ve gone from consistently close-cropped to… whatever the hell this is. I definitely consider my hair a part of my personality, but not necessarily an “essential part.” I’d cut it for a job interview. I’d cut it just to get my mom off my case.

Of course, I’m a man, which means that my hair exists in a range between “almost nobody cares” to “almost nobody notices.” Nobody is really going to “discriminate” against me because of my hair. For women, the struggle is entirely different.

There’s a new legal activism group that is addressing the issue of discrimination against people because of their hair, head-on. It’s called Justice Salon, and seeks to do legal activism on behalf of black women. Longtime ATL readers will recognize their president, Yolanda Young. She has been all up in Biglaw’s face before.

They want to change discrimination laws to prevent employers from discriminating on the basis of hair. You can read the petition here. Currently, at both the state level and federal level, there is no protection if your employer demands certain hairstyles.

This isn’t all “the Yankees require their players to shave.” The Eleventh Circuit has ruled that black woman could be fired for wearing her hair in dreadlocks. The court parsed black hair “texture” as an “immutable characteristic,” but black hairstyle as a “choice.” Discriminating against hair texture would be illegal discrimination based on race, but the style was accorded no special protection.

Again, the respectability side of me tends to agree. Nobody should make me conk my hair, but it if they want it short, whatever. But then, I remember that there aren’t stories of culturally appropriating white people getting fired for wearing dreadlocks, and so I’m reminded of what employers are really discriminating against.

Making this grand distinction between hair texture and hair style requires willful ignorance of the herculean efforts black women undertake to make their hair “texture” fit in with prevailing European cultural imperialism. A few months ago, I would have struggled to explain this to people who didn’t already know. Now, I can just say:

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Are employers really trying to discriminate based on hairstyle, or are they discriminating against black women by other means?

I don’t know the right answer, but I feel strongly that people should be allowed to wear their hair however they want.

End Discrimination Against Black Hair [Justice Salon]


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Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.