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Hair Discrimination is 
Racist 
Why Black Communities Advocate for Hair Peace 

JANTINA ANDERSON  

SUMMARY 

Black girls are at greater risk than other girls for receiving citations due to dress 
code violations and talking back to teachers, as well as for much less severe 
behaviors, such as gum chewing, defiance, and failure to comply with prior 
discipline. Further, these disciplinary measures have a greater likelihood of 
excluding Black girls from the classroom and schools. When taking a closer look at 
a recent trend around the dress code policy infractions, it is clear that some policies 
are discriminatory, if not racist.  

Black girls are being excluded from the opportunity to learn due to wearing natural 
hairstyles, which are common in the Black community; afros, braids, twists, and 
locs. As such, this brief presents recent dress code policy cases which resulted in 
disparaging labels and exclusionary discipline due to Black girls’ natural hairstyles. 

It also addresses the implications Black girls are subjected to due to the 
implementation, interpretation, and enforcement of said racist dress code policies. 

Finally, opportunities for schools to promote awareness of different cultures which 
foster environments of inclusivity, growth, development, and success for all 
students are proposed. 

Author 

JANTINA ANDERSON 
Doctoral student in the IU 
School of Education at 
IUPUI Urban Education 
Studies program 

These disciplinary measures have a greater likelihood of excluding Black girls 
from the classroom and schools. When taking a closer look at a recent trend 

around the dress code policy infractions, it is clear that some policies are 
discriminatory, if not racist. 

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POLICY BRIEF ANDERSON | HAIR DISCRIMINATION 

PRESCRIBING HAIRSTYLES IS A 
POLITICAL ACT 

When examining school dress code policies, it is 
apparent they have become increasingly 
prescriptive. This is largely due to the early 1990s 
movement to address gang violence on school 
grounds via implementing dress code and uniform 
policies intended to prevent students from 
wearing gang attire (DaCosta, 2006; Gilbert, 
1999; Mitchell-Wilson, 1998). The catalyst of this 
movement was a challenge made by former 
President Bill Clinton during his re-election 
campaign (Dussel, 2005). Due to the former 
president’s encouragement and the published 
success of a dress code and uniform policies 
launched by the Long Beach, CA School District, 
school administrators, with the support of the 
national government, began implementing dress 
code and uniform policies across the nation 
(DaCosta, 2006; Gilbert, 1999; Mitchell-Wilson, 
1998). With reflections of each schools’ 
understanding and beliefs of appropriate attire 
and aesthetics, dress code policy language began 
to include guidance around clothing colors and 
styles, accessories, hair colors and styles, and 
make-up. Consequently, some students and 
community members voiced, and continue to 
voice, their concerns around the loss of students’ 
opportunity for personal and cultural expression, 
and the perception of racist intent when the 
policies are inconsistently enforced and 
disparately impact students of color and more 
specifically, Black girls (Kim, 2014; Klein, 2013; 
Metler, 2017). 

As noted in a report, Unlocking Opportunity for 
African American Girls: A Call to Action for 
Educational Equity, by the NAACP Legal Defense 
and Educational Fund, Inc. (NAACPLDF), 
National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) (2014), 
Black girls are at greater risk than other girls for 
receiving citations due to dress code violations 
and talking back to teachers, as well as for much 
less severe behaviors such as gum chewing, 
defiance, and failure to comply with prior 
discipline. Further, a 2018 report published by the 

NWLC, stated school dress codes in the District of 
Columbia (DC) promote race and gender 
discrimination, and create unnecessary and 
sometimes illegal hardship and burdens for Black 
girls in their school districts. As stated by a 
participant in the NAACPLDF and NWLCS 2014 
report, “they have different rules for us [African 
American girls] than they do for white and Asian 
girls. White girls and Asian girls can wear 
anything and get away with it, but they will send 
us to the dean for wearing the same thing.”  

Schools’ dress code and grooming policies are 
negatively impacting Black girls’ opportunity to 
learn in the classroom, socialization with their 
peers in academic and extracurricular settings, 
and outlook on their natural appearance and 
culturally aligned aesthetic. Despite the narratives 
of safety and quality used by schools who utilize 
more prescriptive dress code policies (DaCosta, 
2006), little research has been conducted to 
examine the implications of the policies for 
distinct student populations. Consequently, this 
policy brief discusses recent dress code policy 
cases which resulted in Black girls’ hair being 
labelled as a distraction to school spaces and non-
compliant with said policies. This brief also 
addresses the implications Black girls are 
subjected to due to the implementation, 
interpretation, and enforcement of the dress code 
policies. Further, efforts communities and 
organizations have taken to disrupt the current 
practices, which infringe on the boundaries of race 
neutral and unintentionally disparate impact, will 
be discussed. Finally, opportunities for schools to 
promote awareness of different cultures which 
foster environments of inclusivity, growth, 

Schools’ dress code and grooming policies 
are negatively impacting Black girls’ 

opportunity to learn in the classroom, 
socialization with their peers in academic 

and extracurricular settings, and outlook on 
their natural appearance and culturally 

aligned aesthetic. 

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POLICY BRIEF ANDERSON | HAIR DISCRIMINATION 

development, and success for all students are 
proposed. 

HAIRSTYLE SEGREGATION 

While diversity, equity, and inclusion are three 
words that are repeatedly touted as values and a 
priority, schools continue to grapple with the 
reality of their existence within staff 
representation, policy language, and cultural 
norms. As a result, students and their 
communities have withstood experiences which 
have felt racist and exclusionary. At the center of 
these particular experiences were dress code 
policies and disciplinary practices, which excluded 
or reduced the opportunity to learn for young 
Black girls during the past seven years. 
Consequently, students, parents/guardians, and 
school communities have called out the racism 
and demanded space and consciousness around 
definitions of safety and inclusion shared by them. 

Students’, parents’/guardians’, and community 
members’ ideals of inclusion expand the notion of 
safety and quality to address and incorporate 
individual and cultural expressions which support 
the success of the student beyond academic scores 
(Fox, 2017; Lazar, 2017). Parents/guardians, 
students, and community members 
advocate for the mental, physical, and 
emotional well-being and success of the 
child, along with their academic scores. 
This broader and distinct definition of 
safety and quality creates the opportunity 
for the students to receive care and 
support for their whole being/self.  While 
the concept of caring and supporting the 
whole child is embraced by the community, it 
seems to be less of a priority for the school. As a 
result, the dissonance between schools’ definitions 
and enactment of and students’, 
parents’/guardians’, and communities’ ideals of 
inclusion ebbs and flows. This conflict and tension 
sustain exclusionary trends around Black girls’ 
opportunity to learn and negates space for their 
healthy development. Currently, Black girls are 

being pushed out of schools and classrooms due to 
their hair texture and aesthetic expressions.  

Natural Black hair textures which are known to 
have a tighter curl pattern and more coarse 
texture are healthiest when worn in styles which 
do not require daily manipulation or harsh 
chemicals. As such, Black girls are embracing 
their personal agency to wear their hair in braids, 
twists, afros, locs, and wraps. While most girls are 
able to fully embrace this process of maturation, 
the freedom to choose their hair aesthetic, Black 
girls are met with two barriers, society’s natural 
hair biases, and schools’ adaptation and 
enforcement of society’s hair preferences.  

In 2017, Perception Institute published a hair bias 
study which underscored what Black women have 
known since arriving on the shores of North 
America; there is an unequivocal disdain for the 
hair that grows naturally from their scalp.  As 
shown in Table 1, the “Good Hair” Study: Explicit 
and Implicit Attitudes Toward Black Women’s 
Hair found that, “on average, white women show 
explicit bias toward black women’s textured hair” 
(McGill-Johnson et al., 2017, p. 6). 

Note: Reprinted from "The good hair study: 
Explicit and implicit attitudes toward Black women’s hair," 
by McGill-Johnson, A., Godsil, R., MacFarlane, J., Tropp, L., 
& Goff, P., 2017,  Perception Institute. p.7 
https://perception.org/wp-
content/uploads/2017/01/TheGood- 
HairStudyFindingsReport.pdf 

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Further the study reported a social stigma related 
to afro hair, “white women perceive the United 
States to rate the afro significantly more 
negatively on beauty and sexy/attractiveness than 
black women (p<.001)”.  However, as shown in 
Figure 3, women, regardless of race, perceive the 
United States to view afro hair negatively as it 
relates to professionalism. “Black women perceive 
a level of social stigma against textured hair, and 
this perception is substantiated by white women’s 
devaluation of natural hairstyles” (McGill-
Johnson et al., 2017, p. 6).  

Black girls have experienced these perceptions 
firsthand in their classrooms and schools, a space 
where protecting, nurturing, and developing the 
whole child should be priorities. This is 
exemplified in the conformance demands 
embedded in dress and grooming norms/policies 
which diminishes Black girls’ space for self-
expression and healthy racial socialization identity 
development. 

During the past seven years, incidents involving 
Black female students in k-12 spaces, and scrutiny 
around their hairstyles has increased. Black girls, 
ranging in age between 7 and 15, have been 
subjected to school leaders’ and teachers’ 
unfavorable perceptions and labeling of their hair. 
Terms and phrases such as distractions, 

materialistic, unsuitable, and a fad have been used 
to describe hairstyles commonly worn in Black 
communities (e.g. braided extensions, cornrows, 
afros, locs, and twist) (Fox, 2017; Golgowski, 
2013; Jacobo, 2018; Kim, 2014; Klein, 2013; 
Lazar, 2017; L’Heureux, 2016; Mettler, 2017; 
Rosenblatt, 2018; Ross, 2016).  

Further, Black girls have also been burdened with 
exclusionary practices enacted by those in 
positions of power who are ideally there to protect 
them and ensure their academic growth and 
development. Conversely, as a result of their hair 

aesthetic choices, 
Black girls and their 
guardians have faced 
similar notions and 
actions of school 
segregation which 
existed prior to Brown 
v. Board of Education.
Black students were
forcibly excluded as a
result of their race.
Black girls are
excluded today,
because of their hair
texture and/or choice
in presenting it, which
some say is unique to

their race (Crown Act, n.d.). 

For example, Tiana Parker, a 7-year-old, straight 
A student, was told she could not attend school 
due to her hairstyle, dreadlocks. Deborah Brown 
Community School in Tulsa, OK told Tiana her 
hair was not “presentable” and may “distract from 
the respectful and serious atmosphere it strives 
for,” (Klein, 2013). Her parents made the decision 
to enroll her in a new school (Golgowski, 2013).  

After being harassed by students because of her 
natural afro, 12-year-old, Vanessa VanDyke, and 
her mother requested the school’s assistance with 
addressing the peer harassment/bullying. In 
return, Faith Christian Academy, located in 
Orlando, FL, told Vanessa, her hair was a 
distraction and incompliant with their dress code 

Note: Reprinted from "The good hair study: 
Explicit and implicit attitudes toward Black women’s hair," by McGill-Johnson, A., Godsil, 
R., MacFarlane, J., Tropp, L., & Goff, P., 2017,  Perception Institute. p.7 
https://perception.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/TheGood- 
HairStudyFindingsReport.pdf 
 

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policy. As a result, she received an ultimatum; one 
week to cut or change her hair to comply with the 
policy or unenroll from the academy (Huffpost 
Weird News, 2013). Vanessa and her mother 
resisted the demand to change Vanessa’s 
hairstyle. With an overwhelming amount of 
national support, and publicity, in favor of 
Vanessa’s choice, the academy allowed Vanessa to 
remain enrolled and wear her hair in an afro.  

Fifteen-year-old twin sisters, Maya and Deanna 
Cook, faced in-school suspension and were 
excluded from the prom, track team, school bus, 
and faced multi-days of in-school suspension as a 
result of wearing long braided hair extensions, a 
hairstyle that is common within Black culture. 
After parents, community members in support of 
the sisters, and national media outlets reported 
the case, the school remained firm in their stance 
(Williams, 2017). However, once the attorney 
general’s office ordered Mystic Valley Region 
Charter School, of Malden, MA, to stop the 
enforcement of their dress code policy language, 
the school complied.  

Prior to the start of the Kentucky 2016 school 
year, State Legislature, Attica Scott, brought 
national awareness via a social media platform, 
Twitter, to Louisville, Kentucky’s Butler 
Traditional High School’s new dress code policy. 
She perceived the policy to be institutionally racist 
because it targeted and banned many hairstyles 
primarily worn by Black students; braids, 
cornrows, dreadlocks, or jewelry adorned 
hairstyles. With the support of local and national 
communities, and the Kentucky American Civil 
Liberties Union (ACLU), the policy was suspended 
prior to the start of the school year (L'Heureux, 
2016; Ross, 2016).  

In 2018, at a Roman Catholic private Louisiana 
school, an 11-year-old, Black girl, Faith Fennidy, 
was not allowed to attend classes until she 
removed her braided hair extensions (Rosenblatt, 
2018). Christ the King Elementary School added a 
prohibition in their policy over the summer which 
banned “extensions, clip-ins or weaves” to 
promote natural hair. Faith’s parents withdrew 
her from the private school (Jacobo, 2018).  

Lastly, in 2019, Marian Scott, an 8-year-old, 
Michigan elementary student, was not allowed to 
take a school picture. Paragon Charter Academy 
excluded Marian from taking pictures due to the 
red hair braided into her bun. As reported by 
WILX a CNN affiliate, “the Jackson, Michigan, 
school's handbook says students' hair color must 
be "of natural tones" to get their picture taken” 
(Buchmann, 2019, para. 2). An email sent to 
families, the night before picture day, outlined 
acceptable and prohibited picture day aesthetics 
and attire. Marian Scott remained enrolled in the 
school but stated the incident made her feel 
“singled out” (Sorto, 2019).  

INSTITUTIONAL INCLUSION, LET THEM 
LEARN 

Let us learn! Let them learn! These two phrases 
where chanted during the school board meeting in 
Malden, MA as community members, 
parents/guardians, and students gathered in 
support of Maya and Deanna Cook.  The crowd 
shouted the phrase as a means to advocate for the 
students’ rights to focus on their education versus 
the negative implications of violating culturally 
insensitive dress code policies.  

Because Black girls continue to face a greater 
potential of school discipline and exclusion, despite 
the offense, a variety of organizations have led 
studies, commissions, and campaigns to pass 
policies around the disciplinary disparities and 
outcomes experienced by Black girls. These efforts 
are inclusive of but not limited Congresswoman 
Ayanna Presley’s bill, Monique Morris’ “Pushout” 
scholarship and advocacy efforts, and the CROWN 
campaign created by Dove and the CROWN 
coalition.  

H.R. 5325 – Ending Pushout Act of 2019, 
proposed by Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, was 
heard by the House and referred to the House 

Until those in positions of power are able to recognize 
the unnecessary burden placed on Black girls to 

conform to Eurocentric ideals of appropriate 
appearance and beauty, Black girls and women will 
continue to carry the associated pain and stigma of 
their natural hair in spaces where their appearance 

should be the least of their concern. 

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Committee on Education and Labor on December 
5, 2019 (Pressley, 2019).  

Pressley’s legislation, co-sponsored by 
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), would 
establish $2.5 billion in new grants for 
states and schools to provide educators 
with implicit bias training, invest in 
counselors and social workers, and adjust 
school discipline policies ― notably 
around “appearance” and “grooming” for 
students ― with input from families and 
community members (Ruiz-Grossman, 
2019, para. 5). 

Further, the bill will create accountability for the 
Education Department to routinely collect 
additional “pushout” or exclusionary 
(suspensions/expulsions) discipline data and 
establish a task force responsible for investigating 
the impact of school disciplinary actions for Black 
and brown girls. As proposed, schools will gain 
eligibility for the funds created by this bill, if they 
ban exclusionary discipline for tardiness and 
absenteeism and for infractions such as dress code 
or grooming violations. Additionally, schools 
would have to eliminate corporal punishment, 
isolation, and restraining students (Ruiz-
Grossman, 2019). 

Dr. Morris has spent the last three decades 
researching, writing, lecturing, and advocating on 
social justice issues, policies, and practices 
focused on improving juvenile justice, 
educational, and socioeconomic conditions for 
Black girls, women, and their families (Dr. 
Monique W. Morris, n.d.). In 2016, Dr. Morris’ 
published a book titled, Pushout: The 
Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, which 
centered the experiences that lead to the exclusion 
and sometimes criminalization of Black girls in 
school spaces (Love our Girls, n.d.). Following the 
release of her book, she took bringing awareness 
to this phenomenon one step further by releasing 
a documentary with the same title in 2019 
(Pushout, n.d.). Further, she has partnered with 
Congresswoman Presley to advocate for federal 

legislation and programs to support the success 
and well-being of Black girls in school.  

Finally, the National Black Women’s Justice 
Institute (NBWJI), an organization that works to 
address the challenges Black girls and women face 
as it relates to the school to prison pipeline, 
employment opportunities after incarceration, 
and the reduction of sexual and domestic violence 
in Black communities was founded and is led by 
Dr. Morris. NBWJI publish policy 
recommendations, in 2019, for federal, state, and 
local policy makers to consider in support of 
addressing the alarming statistics related to Black 
girls’ suspension, restraint, corporal punishment, 
law enforcement referral and arrest rates in high 
schools (National Black Women’s Justice 
Institute, 2019).  

To end, as it relates to the discriminatory practices 
of excluding and/or punishing individuals because 
of their hair texture, a campaign called the 
CROWN Act was created in 2019. The CROWN 
(creating a respectful and open world for natural 
hair) campaign was created “to ensure protection 
against discrimination based on race-based 
hairstyles by extending statutory protection to 
hair texture and protective styles such as braids, 
locs, twists, and knots in the workplace and public 
schools,” (Crown Act About, n.d.).  

To date, seven out of fifty states have passed this 
bill, creating race-based protection in state 
employment, housing, education codes for hair 
texture and protective styles (Crown Act About, 
n.d.).

Creating spaces that acknowledge and 
embrace differences will serve as a model 
behavior and value for the students within 
these spaces. Ideally, the environment will 

translate as the norm for engaging and 
respecting differences beyond the classroom, 
and throughout each student’s matriculation 

and maturation journeys. 

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CHALLENGES TO CULTURAL 
INCLUSION 

The efforts to understand this type of specific 
racism are rare. Racism is usually based on the 
color of one’s skin which might suggest the 
individual’s ethnic/racial heritage. Many of the 
current efforts that center the disproportionate 
rate at which some Black girls are disciplined, 
excluded from school spaces, and face criminal 
consequences do not tease apart and address the 
motivations for the treatment beyond students’ 
race and gender.  

The issue of Black girls wearing their natural, afro, 
hair is related to the disciplinary disparities but it 
is a much more nuanced concern. Before we can 
effectively discuss the policy language and efforts 
to enforce such dress code policies, we must first 
understand the reason policy makers and leaders 
via afro hair with such disdain and its connections 
to race.  

The CROWN act comes the closest to exploring 
such nuances as it speaks more to the reasons why 
the definition of race should expand to include 
one’s hair texture and styles. In order for 
additional states, policy makers, and leaders to 
buy into this connection and idea, further 
discussions and education around the historical, 
political, and social ways that hair texture and 
styles have been used as mediums of power most 
frequently used to disparage Black citizens is 
necessary to improve the impact of current and 
future proposals.  

At this time, those in positions of power likely 
have little knowledge beyond their own 
experiences and understandings therefore, when 
students, communities, guardians advocate for 
inclusion they see the demand as unnecessary and 
their policies as neutral. They have no idea or 
choose to ignore the power afro hair and 
protective styles poses within the Black 
community and for those who wear them. Black 
girls are able to rid themselves of harmful 
chemicals which produce long-term health 
disadvantages. Black girls are also able to engage 

in physical sports and activities without concern 
around the state of their hair. Finally, Black girls 
are able to realize the beauty of their cultural and 
heritage and develop a healthy racial identity by 
embracing their natural texture and protective 
styles.  

Despite the current arguments around the 
neutrality of the current policies and their policy 
maker’s intentions, until those in positions of 
power are able to recognize the unnecessary 
burden placed on Black girls to conform to 
Eurocentric ideals of appropriate appearance and 
beauty, Black girls and women will continue to 
carry the associated pain and stigma of their 
natural hair in spaces where their appearance 
should be the least of their concern. They should 
have the equal opportunity to focus on learning 
and performing to the best of the ability without 
being distracted by the need to comply with a 
racist policy or standard. In order to reach this 
status, communities, parents, guardians, 
academics, and advocates must continue to raise 
this issue as a concern with the support of data 
and narratives to educate while advocating, and 
demand change.  

PRIORITIZE CULTURAL 
UNDERSTANDING 

Due to the growing racial, ethnic, religious and 
non-binary diversity of student bodies across the 
nation, consideration and familiarity of non-
Eurocentric, non-Christian, and non-binary 
cultural values and norms is necessary to 
construct spaces where students feel comfortable 
existing wholly. This comfort will provide a level 
of freedom to focus on learning versus being 
distracted by unnecessarily prescriptive, greatly 
oppressive, and inherently racist policies which 
have the propensity to traumatize those most 
impacted by the language and enforcement of said 
policies.  Further, creating spaces that 
acknowledge and embrace differences will serve as 
a model behavior and value for the students 
within these spaces. Ideally, the environment will 
translate as the norm for engaging and respecting 

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differences beyond the classroom, and throughout 
each student’s matriculation and maturation 
journeys.  

In order to achieve such spaces, policymakers and 
local leaders must begin building relationships 
with the families of the students, and become 
intimately familiar with the communities of the 
schools and student support systems. It is no 
longer enough for teachers and administrations to 
expatriate from their utopian suburbs or lifestyles 
each day to perform their daily role. They must 
become engaged school citizens who are open to, 
invested in, and value the culture of the students 
they influence and teach each day. Leaders and 
policy makers can achieve this by; learning the 
history and current landscape of the surrounding 
neighborhoods, meeting with nearby community 
organizations and organizers, conversing with 
school employees who live in the area, and hosting 
discussions with students and their families.  

Further, it is also important for policy makers and 
local leaders to facilitate discussions with 

students, guardians, and parents around policies 
and procedures, which impact their livelihoods, 
prior to finalizing such rules. This may occur in 
the form of phone or text surveys, parent or 
student councils, monthly community meetings 
held at multiple times with virtual attendance 
available. Efforts of this nature will serve as a 
means to prioritize the understanding of cultural 
norms and values of their students.  

Additionally, these actions will serve to better 
inform the decision-making process of school 
policies. Implications of said policies will be 
realized prior to the expensive lesson of a 
student’s experienced trauma. While relationships 
and conversations seem to oversimplify a 
potential solution to this particular challenge, they 
are far from easy, if done with the proper intent. 
The potential of positive revolution which benefits 
all students is couched in seeking to understand 
and acting to include by making time, providing 
attention, being open to and learning 
differences/unique narratives/others’ values, and 
investing in collaborative outcomes.

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REFERENCES 

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https://www.wilx.com/content/news/Eight-year-old-girl-denied-school-picture-because-of-her-
hair-562449021.html 

DaCosta, K. (2006). Dress code blues: An exploration of urban students’ reactions to a public high School 
uniform policy. The Journal of Negro Education, 75(1), 49-59. 

Dr. Monique W. Morris. (n.d.) Bio. https://www.moniquewmorris.me/ 

Dussel, I. (2005). When appearances are not deceptive: A comparative history of school uniform in 
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179-195. doi:10.1080/0030923042000335538 

Fox, G. (2017, May 21). After backlash, Malden school suspends controversial hair policy. The Boston 
Globe.  https://www3.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/05/21/trustees-malden-school-meet-over-
hair-policy/P0gA6z5wAT65hq84DbagmO/story.html?arc404=true 

Gilbert, C. (1999). We are what we wear: Revisiting student dress codes. Brigham Young University 
Education and Law Journal, Summer (1), 3-18. 

Golgowski, N. (2013, September 11). Oklahoma school changes dress code after 'no dreadlocks' policy sent 
girl home in tears. New York Daily News. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/okla-
school-dress-code-no-dreadlocks-policy-article-1.1452030 

Huffpost Weird News. (2013, November 26). Vanessa VanDyke Could Be Expelled After Having Her Hair 
Mocked. Huffpost Weird News. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/vanessa-vandyke-
expelled_n_4345326 

Jacobo, J. (2018, August 21). 6th grader asked to leave private school over rule banning hair extensions, 
family says. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/US/6th-grader-asked-leave-private-school-rule-
banning/story?id=57311484 

Kim, C. (2014, November 27). Florida school threatens to expel student over ‘natural hair’. MSNBC: The 
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Klein, R. (2013, September 5). Tiana Parker, 7, switches schools after being forbidden from wearing 
dreads. Huffpost Black Voices. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tiana-parker-
dreads_n_3873868?guccounter=1 

Lazar, K. (2017). Black Malden charter students punished for braided hair extensions. The Boston Globe. 
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L’Heureux, C. (2016, August 4). Kentucky high school to change racist hair policy. The Cut. 
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racist-hair-policy.html 

Love our Girls. (n.d.). Meet Dr. Monique Morris. https://logpledge.org/meet-dr-monique-morris/ 

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McGill-Johnson, A., Godsil, R., MacFarlane, J., Tropp, L., & Goff, P. (2017). The good hair study: Explicit 
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Mettler, K. (2017, May, 15). Mass. school punishes twin girls for hair braid extensions. Their parents say 
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twins-for-hair-braid-extensions-their-parents-say-its-racial-
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Mitchell-Wilson, A. (1998). Public school dress codes: The constitutional debate. Brigham Young University 
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NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. & National Women’s Law Center (2014). Unlocking 
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