CROWN Act affirmed hair discrimination is racial discrimination

For my first job interview at a small-town newspaper, I had a decision to make: to show up as my most authentic self, wearing my hair in its natural state, or to straighten or otherwise manipulate it to appeal to Eurocentric ideals around beauty and “professionalism.”

It’s a back-and-forth many Black people go through when navigating our place in jobs and schools, and it’s an unnecessary and discriminatory burden. That burden was lightened last year when California became the first state to pass the CROWN Act into law, prohibiting discrimination based on hair texture and hairstyle.

Hair discrimination is racial discrimination, with centuries of evidence in the form of laws, court cases, news stories and personal experiences proving its existence. (While I did get that first job, I also got years of rude, insensitive and invasive comments, questions, jokes and comparisons to cartoon characters simply because of the way that my hair grows out of my head. This has been true of every newsroom I’ve ever worked in, including this one.)

“For centuries it’s been lawful to discriminate based on our hair texture,” D. Wendy Greene, a law professor at Drexel University, told The Washington Post in a story about the CROWN Act (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair). “It takes a lot of time to dismantle these deeply embedded norms. It takes a long time to change the culture.”

Greene — who served as the legal expert for the California law — is the founder of #Freethehair Movement to raise awareness around the systemic racial discrimination Black people face on the basis of natural hairstyles. She’s a respected legal expert on “grooming codes discrimination,” a term she coined to describe the ways that appearance and grooming regulations engender inequality and infringe on civil rights protections against forms of discrimination based on race, gender, religion, age, disability and other characteristics.

In celebration of the first anniversary of the law, she offered her insight, scholarship and perspective on the significance and necessity of laws like the CROWN Act. (This email interview has been edited for length and clarity.) Q:

How did you become involved with the CROWN Act, and what’s been your goal in your work on this law?

A:

Nearly 20 years ago as a law student, I set out to publish legal scholarship with the aim of correcting a legal wrong that I uncovered in our federal law. For nearly 40 years, federal courts have promulgated what I call a “hair-splitting” legal distinction in civil rights cases challenging workplace bans against Afros, braids, twists and locs as race discrimination in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Title VII prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of race, and several federal courts have declared that Title VII only protects against racial discrimination animated by “immutable characteristics.” Applying this “immutability doctrine,” federal courts have concluded that employers who discriminate against Black workers for wearing Afros, engage in unlawful race discrimination because (the courts) perceive Afros as an “immutable” characteristic of Blackness. However, if the same employee is discriminated against when she locks, braids or twists her Afro, this discrimination is not considered race discrimination because courts have defined these natural hairstyles as “mutable, cultural characteristics.” ...

I have consistently advocated that natural hair discrimination constitutes racial discrimination and constructed a legal apparatus for how our civil rights laws can reflect this reality. Behind the scenes, I have served as a legal expert and adviser in civil rights cases challenging natural hair discrimination as race discrimination. (W)hen I received word in early 2019 from a legislative staffer working for the California legislature that Senate Bill 188, also known as the CROWN Act, was introduced by California state Sen. Holly Mitchell, I naturally welcomed the opportunity to discuss the bill with her staff, and the state of the law surrounding race-based natural hair discrimination.

Q:

What do people misunderstand when they argue that “it’s just hair,” or that employers or schools should be able to institute whatever policies they want to in order to promote a particular image they’ve created for themselves?

A:

There are several common misconceptions about natural hair discrimination that I seek to disrupt in my work. People often misconstrue that natural hair discrimination Black people experience is harmless and infrequent, and thereby, the global movements to combat this form of racial discrimination are superficial and insignificant. In my testimony before the California Legislature and other advocacy efforts supporting the CROWN Acts, I explain what I call the “invisible harms” of natural hair discrimination that Black women experience. Like with Black men, Black women donning natural hairstyles are deprived of employment opportunities and are subjected to heightened scrutiny, resulting discipline, and harassment in workplaces. However, grooming policies prohibiting natural hairstyles require Black women to either cut off their hair or wear their hair straightened; the latter is usually achieved through toxic chemicals, extreme heat-styling, wigs, and weaves, which are expensive and time-consuming to maintain.

Long-term use of chemical relaxants, heat, wigs, and/or weaves often causes temporary or permanent damage to Black women’s hair and scalp. It is also common for Black women to suffer through chemical burns while chemical relaxers are being applied to their hair and scalp, which are not only excruciatingly painful, but also severely damaging.

lisa.deaderick@sduniontribune.com