Kansas School requires Native American student to cut his hair to attend

An 8-year-old Native American boy who grew his hair to honor his heritage was forced to get a haircut after being threatened with suspension from school, the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas said.

In a letter sent Friday, the ACLU called on the Girard Unified School District in southeastern Kansas to rescind a policy that requires boys to wear their hair short and students to wear their hair long, based on their cultural beliefs. Refusing to accommodate a student’s religious and cultural beliefs violates state and federal law, the ACLU said.

The policy will be reviewed in December, the school district’s superintendent said Monday.

The student is just the latest to face punishment at school for dressing or having a hairstyle that reflected his cultural heritage. Earlier this year, a black high school student in Texas had locs, long, rope-like strands of hair, hung down the length of his hair. In Colorado, a high school student was not allowed to wear a sash at her graduation to honor her Mexican-American heritage.

Tina Daniel, principal of RV Haderlein Elementary, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Todd Ferguson, the school district’s superintendent, said in an email that the dress code policy will be reviewed at a meeting in December. Mr Ferguson declined to comment about the boy, citing confidentiality rules.

Mr. Ferguson wrote that “nothing is more important” to the district and staff “than creating a safe, respectful and caring school for every student.”

The ACLU said in a rack that not allowing a Native American student to wear his hair long recalled efforts to “separate Native American children from their families and tribes and deny them their rights to cultural and religious expression.”

Beginning in the early 19th century, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to boarding schools in the United States as part of an effort to assimilate young Native people. At these schools they were often stripped of their tribal clothing and hairstyles.

The letter does not identify the boy by name except as an 8-year-old who is a member of the Wyandotte Nation, located in Oklahoma, and attends RV Haderlein Elementary in Girard, Kan.

The boy attended a Wyandotte Nation youth event last summer and was inspired to adopt the spiritual and cultural practice of wearing his hair long, the ACLU said. But when the school year started in August, he was told he had to cut his hair to comply with the school dress code, which requires boys to have short hair, the letter said.

The school has no hair length policy for girls and its dress code promotes “rigid views of gender norms and roles,” according to the ACLU.

The boy’s mother, whose name was redacted from the letter, visited the school in early September to ask if her son could be exempt from the school’s hair policy, the ACLU said. The mother also offered to show documentation proving her son is a member of the Wyandotte Nation.

On September 22, the boy’s mother received an email from the school’s assistant principal stating that the boy had to cut his hair by the following Monday “or he will be sent home.” The boy’s hair was cut that weekend, the ACLU said.

The organization said RV Haderlein Elementary’s policy “disproportionately impacts Native American students and perpetuates a legacy of cultural, psychological and spiritual trauma and discrimination.”