Darryl George: Texas judge rules school district can restrict the length of male students’ natural hair
A Texas judge ruled Thursday that the state’s CROWN Act does not make it unlawful for school dress codes to limit a student’s hair length.
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Bullshit. A mullet has short hair in the front and long hair in the back. There's no version of a mullet hairstyle that does not define the length of the hair. There are variations of mullets, but each hairstyle variation defines a length.
The judge is a racist piece of shit who has no business on the bench.
Right, but you can have a short mullet or a long mullet. Short dreads or longer dreads. There is a factor of length separate from style. As much as you want it not to be, interpretation is complex. This judge could absolutely be a racist piece of shit, and likely is, given that he's a republican judge. But the fault here lies at the feet of the legislature who wrote an inadequate law.
I actually have a person in the same room as me right now who is a hairdresser, and they do see both arguments. I'm not asking for you to agree with the judge (and I have to stress again that I do not and would include length in style) but there is a valid view of that word here. But honestly, I'm not that keen to argue about it. If you still think it's not a matter up for debate, let's just agree to disagree and move forward aligned with the idea that this kid should be able to wear his hair however tf he wants.
Right, your hairstyle can be short dreads or long dreads, or a short mullet or a long mullet. That's four different hairstyles. This judge is absolutely a racist piece of shit. The legislators who wrote the law testified in court that of course hairstyle includes length, because that's obviously what a hairstyle is. There is no ambiguity or rokm for interpretation. These are all objective facts.
Alright cool, let me rebut with the following: yes it can, and yes it did. You're looking at it, right now. Racist piece of shit or no, he's got power and he just used it to take advantage of an ambiguity to get this result. So argue all you want, that's an objective fact. The lawmakers can be pissed off all they want, but this is on them. They should have done what has always been asked and required of good law, which is being explicit and clear.
And frankly, it's really fucking stupid to argue that definitions of words, especially in a legal context, are objective anyway. Words and definitions are exceptionally subjective, which is why we even have a judicial system to interpret the law. Yall can be pissed at me all you like, but the fact of the matter is, here we are talking about this because it was taken advantage of on a technicality, that should have been considered in advance and covered.
There's no ambiguity. There is no subjective definition. No hairstyles exist that do not include a length. The length of your hair is part of the hairstyle. It is stupid to argue, on that we agree.
You cannot have a mullet with long hair in the front and shorter hair in the back, because that's not the hair lengths of a mullet. You cannot have a mohawk with long hair on the sides and shorter on top. You cannot have a long, curly crew cut. You cannot have pigtails with a completely shaved head.
Hairstyles always, inexorably require hair length definitions. Anything else is a disingenuous argument, an attempt at semantic skulduggery. It is a lie to say that hairstyles don't include length.
There is no technicality, there is no advantage, there is only racism and injustice. This judge is a fraud, the school superintendent is a fascist bigot, and this ruling is a crime against humanity.
Some hairstyles have a range of lengths as a factor, but others do not. A crew cut cannot be long, but even your other examples have obvious counter arguments. Pigtails cannot be shaved length, but can be very short or long enough to drag on the floor. Dreads can be very short, or as long as down to your hips if you get really carried away with it. Now for me, I'm all for it, you do you. But it's a valid argument that this law is forbidding restrictions to whether pigtails are allowed, but not to the range of lengths of said pigtails. Now just replace "pigtails" with "locs" and here we are. Now, if the school forbid all male hairstyles longer than X inches and your cultural hairstyle of choice has a minimum length of X inches as an inbuilt requirement to achieve said style, that would be a different case and likely to succeed on the CROWN Act alone.
End of the day though, we've just been arguing semantics over the word "hairstyle" all day. I'm happy to just agree to disagree on this. I think we're even aligned on the principle that students should be free to choose their own hairstyle.
