FIGHTING HAIR DISCRIMINATION
Connecticut lawmakers to take up CROWN Act, which would offer more protections for those wearing ethnic hairstyles associated with race
HARTFORD — Responding to concerns raised by Black women, Connecticut lawmakers are seeking to become the eighth state to adopt a new law that prohibits discrimination based on hairstyles historically associated with race.
The state House of Representatives was scheduled to debate Wednesday on the CROWN Act, which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.
“I have been one of those Black women,” Rep. Robyn Porter, a New Haven Democrat who co-chairs the legislature’s labor committee, said recently. “We all know that if you want to get the job, you don’t necessarily go in with your Afro out. You don’t go in with cornrows or extensions, and if you’re wearing a wig, you want a wig that is pretty familiar to them. Wehave to conform to what Europeans have designated as acceptable, what they’ve coined in some
of our natural hairstyles as being untidy, unprofessional. This is why we’re pushing for this legislation this year.”
The issue has gained momentum in legislatures around the country, becoming law in California, NewYork, NewJersey, Maryland, Virginia, Washington and Colorado and being debated in 19 other states nationwide.
The Connecticut bill lists hairstyles that include afros, cornrows, dreadlocks, Bantu knots, braids, and twists.
The measure passed at the committee level last year, but then the 2020 legislative session was short-circuited in mid-March by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the CROWN Act, like most other legislation, was shelved. Lawmakers pledged to come back again this year, leading to Wednesday’s debate.
Black women are 80% more likely to alter their natural hair to accommodate social norms or work expectations, according to a study completed by Dove, the cosmetic manufacturer that supports the hair movement. The study showed that Black women are also 1.5 times more likely to be sent home from work due to their hairstyles. The bill passed the labor committee last week by a unanimous vote.
“The pressure for Black women to conform to eurocentric hair styles isn’t just impolite banter,” Pamela Selders, founder of the group CT Black Women, said in written testimony to the committee for Feb. 9 public hearing. “In the workplace, Black women are more likely not to be hired, be penalized and sent home, be demoted, lose promotions or be terminated because of hairstyles. Our children lose educational opportunities, are denied school entry, bullied, and/ or forced into cutting their hair. All this without mentioning the violence and humiliation suffered.”
Suzette DeBeathamBrown, the first Black female mayor of Bloomfield, testified at the hearing that she started wearing wigs three years ago when she was running for election. “I realized that sometimes when I showed up in my most authentic way, some people didn’t appreciate that,” she said. “They didn’t appreciate it, and they didn’t respect it once I was elected.”
That changed a few months ago. “I was sitting down, having a conversation with myself, and my self told me it was OK for me to show up as my most authentic self with my crown, whether I wanted to perm it, whether I wanted to corn it up, whether I wanted to twist it up or whatever I wanted to do with it, I should be able to do with it,” she said.