The California Senate approved a bill to outlaw racial discrimination based on hairstyle on Monday, April 22.
What We Know…
- The bill, called the Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act, will update the state’s discrimination laws with more expansive language, updating the definition of racial discrimination to “traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles.”
- The bill bans schools and workplaces from having dress codes that disallow braits, twist and other natural hairstyles.
- The bill works to correct Eurocentric professional beauty standards that employers cannot discriminate against Black employees. Los Angeles Senator Holly J. Mitchell, who sponsors the bill, said the new bill “foster inclusion and diversity.”
- California is the first state to approve this bill; the Senate approved the bill with a vote of 37-0. The bill will now go to the State Assembly.
- New York City enacted a similar law in February that protects workers’ rights to “maintain natural hair or hairstyles that are closely associated with their racial, ethnic or cultural identities.”
- This issue has come to the fore of public discourse since a referee at a wrestling tournament in New Jersey requested a wrestler forfeit or cut off his dreadlocks before his match.
People have responded very positively to Mitchell’s support of the CROWN Act, anticipating more progressive racial discrimination reform to come.
