Schoolgirl wins court battle for longer hair

School to pay costs as department probes why code was not fair

The Polokwane High Court has ordered the reinstatement of a pupil who was dismissed from a Limpopo school last week for having long hair.

The pupil, who cannot be named because she is a minor, had been expelled from Höerskool Piet Potgieter in Mokopane last Thursday.

She was accused of keeping long hair. According to the school’s policy, pupils of African origin were only allowed to keep hair of 1cm length while their white counterparts could keep it at 4cm.

The 17-year-old pupil was accused of defying the school’s policy by keeping her hair at 4cm long and expelled on Thursday last week.

The parents of the pupil took the matter to court to challenge her expulsion. The matter was heard on an urgent basis on Tuesday and the court ruled in her favour.

An interim order, which Sowetan has seen, directed principal Jimmy Steel to reinstate her.

The school and the principal were interdicted from discriminating, victimising and harassing the pupil “emotionally, physically and otherwise”.

“The first [school] and second respondents [principal] are hereby ordered to reinstate the applicant [the pupil] with immediate effect from the date of the granting of this order.

“The first and second respondents are hereby ordered to pay the costs of this application.”

It also granted a postponement, calling upon the school to show cause by April 17 as to why the order should not be made final.

Approached for comment, Steel confirmed the court order had been delivered to the school.

“We are abiding by the court order and are subsequently executing the order. The rest of the case is still sub judice.”

Steel said they had not yet decided whether to challenge the ruling or not.

He refused to comment on why his school policy allowed only white pupils to come to school with longer hair than their black schoolmates.

Education department spokesman Sam Makondo said schools did not have the authority to expel pupils and only the department head could do so after recommendations by the governing body.

Makondo said the pupil was not expelled from the school but ordered to abide by the school’s code of conduct “as signed for by the parents”.

“But as the department we accept the interim order... [and] expect the pupil to be at school. Our investigations are under way to ensure that codes of conduct of schools are accommodative,” he said.

‘‘ We are abiding by the court order and are subsequently executing the order