Michigan lawmakers aim to stamp out hair-based discrimination

When a Black New Jersey teen was forced to cut his dreadlocks in order to participate in a high school wrestling match in late 2018, U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Southfield) was taken aback. The wrestler, Andrew Johnson, received a hurried haircut after he was told by a referee that his hair violated wrestling rules. He won the match and state officials opened a civil rights investigation, the New York Times reported. Now members of Congress are trying to make sure that never happens again. Lawrence and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) are pushing for a bill that would ban discrimination based on hair textures and styles, which backers say would improve equity in education, employment, housing and other public programs. The study finds that Black women are also more likely than white women to be sent home from the workplace because of their hair and more likely to report harsh judgments based on looks. Four out of five said they have to change their hair from its natural state to fit in at the office. But women aren’t the only victims of hair-based discrimination. “This is about men as well,” Lawrence said in an interview, citing Johnson, the high school wrestler from New Jersey. Another example: Last October, Penn State football player Jonathan Sutherland received a letter calling his dreadlocks “awful” and “disgusting.”