The CROWN Act
The CROWN Act (aka Senate Bill 188) is a law that forbids discrimination based on hair texture and hair styles. CROWN stands for “Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair.”
On March 18, 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the CROWN Act, but it’s up to each state whether or not they want to enact the bill. As of July 2022, California, Tennessee, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado, Washington, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New Mexico, Delaware, Nebraska, Nevada, the U.S Virgin Islands, Illinois and Oregon have passed the law.
But isn’t there already a law that protects against discrimination?
In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was finally passed that banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin. However, this law still left it up to courts to decide what constitutes as racial discrimination. The 1976 case of Jenkins v Blue Cross Mutual Hospital Insurance was a very high profile case and is one of the main reasons why afros are recognized to be protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
So, it sounds like discrimination against black hair is illegal due to the Civil Rights Act, right? Wrong.
Federal courts have persisted in excluding protection against hair discrimination because they consider it to be a characteristic that can be changed. What the courts fail to consider is that culturally and historically, Black hairstyles are closely aligned with Black people. To disregard the significance Black hairstyles have to people in the community is further proving that the identity considered “professional” is a Eurocentric one. As the new California bill states, “Professionalism was, and still is, closely linked to European features and mannerisms, which entails that those who do not naturally fall into Eurocentric norms must alter their appearances, sometimes drastically and permanently, in order to be deemed professional.”
Hair discrimination also impacts K-12 students in a variety of ways. Examples include: students receiving detentions and suspensions for violating school dress codes which prohibit wearing hair in braids with extensions or other natural hair styles; student athletes who are unable to participate in sports unless they cut or change their hair; and displays that show images of Black children, including Black girls with braids, and label those hairstyles as “inappropriate.” ~ Anti Defamation League
Even if the law passes in more states, people aren’t going to suddenly be full of a deep appreciation and understanding of Black hairstyles and Black hair culture. The United States has been passing laws that discriminate against Black hair since the 1700’s. However, if discriminating against a Black person because of their hairstyle is illegal, at the very least we can expect employers and educators to think twice before enacting racist grooming policies and behaviors.
Statistics from the 2021 CROWN Research for Girls:
80% of Black women are more likely to change their hair from its natural state to “fit in” at their place of work.
By age twelve, 86% of Black teenagers started experiencing discrimination based on their hair.
Black girls as young as five years old experience hair discrimination.
Employees are over 3 times as likely to perceive a Black woman’s hair as unprofessional compared to non-black women.
The social stigma attached to Black hair is harmful enough, but then we have to remember the workplace dynamic as well. The majority of Black women, like all other women today in our country, need to be able to work to support themselves. Unfortunately, a lot of workplace policies are typically based on subjective and biased beliefs about what “professionalism” or “neat” hairstyles looks like. These beliefs are often based on white standards of beauty (i.e., straight hair, light skin, etc.). As a society, we must get to a point where instead of seeing our hair styles as countercultural and crazy, or dirty and dangerous, they would be seen as works of art and an homage to our cultural heritage.
Even in the UK, they have their own version of the Crown Act called the Halo Code which was put into place to specifically cite Black hair as needing unique protections. Just like in the U.S., they technically have a law that prohibits discrimination, but those laws have not been protecting Black people from discrimination against their hair.
Now, recently we’ve seen the United States military change its grooming policies and allow natural Black hairstyles that were previously banned. We’ve seen afros, dreadlocks, braids and twists on the red carpets in Hollywood and in fashion weeks all over the world. We’ve also seen a natural hair movement give rise to an entirely new generation of Black female hair care entrepreneurs. We have enough educated people with the right intentions to see a true societal shift in the perception of Black hair. Now, we just have to continue doing the work.
Sources:
https://myamericanmeltingpot.com/2022/04/05/crown-act-discrimination-natural-black-hairstyles/
https://www.adl.org/education/resources/tools-and-strategies/what-is-the-crown-act
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/a-brief-history-of-black-hair-politics-and-discrimination
www.hji.co.uk/business/the-halo-code-introduced-prevent-hair-discrimination-uk/
Samone Long is a musician, freelance writer, and contributing writer for Hope Magazine. She also serves as a Marketing Assistant for a medical company based in North Carolina. She has a passion for writing about human rights, and social reform. One of her main goals is to inspire minorities to advocate for themselves, educate themselves, and uplift one another.
