George, a junior, said he has felt stressed about what he says is an unfair punishment, but he’s grateful for a court date.
ANAHUAC, Texas (AP) — A judge ordered Wednesday that a trial be held next month to determine whether a
In an affidavit filed last week in support of the temporary restraining order, Darryl George said he is being subjected to “cruel treatment.”
“I love my hair, it is sacred and it is my strength,” George wrote. “All I want to do is go to school and be a model student. I am being harassed by school officials and treated like a dog.”
A spokesperson for the school district didn’t speak with reporters after the hearing and didn’t immediately reply to an email seeking comment.
In a paid ad that ran this month in the Houston Chronicle, Barbers Hill Superintendent Greg Poole maintained the district is not violating the CROWN Act.
In the ad, Poole defended his district’s policy and wrote that districts with a traditional dress code are safer and had higher academic performance and that “being an American requires conformity.”
“We will not lose sight of the main goal — high standards for our students — by bending to political pressure or responding to misinformed media reports. These entities have ‘lesser’ goals that ultimately harm kids,” Poole wrote.
The two Texas lawmakers who co-wrote the state’s version of the CROWN Act — state Reps. Rhetta Bowers and Ron Reynolds — attended Wednesday’s hearing and said the new state law does protect Darryl George’s hairstyle.
The district “is punishing Darryl George for one reason: his choice to wear his hair in a protective style which harms no one and causes no distraction in the classroom,” Bowers said.
George’s family has also filed a formal complaint with the Texas Education Agency and a federal civil rights lawsuit against Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with the school district, alleging they failed to enforce the CROWN Act. The lawsuit is before a federal judge in Galveston, Texas.
Barbers Hill’s policy on student hair was previously challenged in a May 2020 federal lawsuit filed by two other students. Both students withdrew from the high school, but one returned after a federal judge granted a temporary injunction, saying the student showed “a substantial likelihood” that his rights to free speech and to be free from racial discrimination would be violated if not allowed to return to campus. That lawsuit remains pending.
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