Itasca, Texas Boy Suspended for Long Hair
We live in a time when "children" are in the news for committing horrible crimes: arson, rape, murder. Now we have to add to the list of horrors: not scheduling an appointment with your hair dresser.
Kenneth Fails, 12, a sxith-grader at Itasca Middle School in Itasca, Texas, received an in-school suspension on the first day of school. His offense? Long hair. He had previously been on in-school suspension for several weeks in fifth grade starting in April for having long locks.
Now here's the thing that might get Kenneth a lawyer and lead to a legal precedent: girls at his school can have long hair.
How long has it been since the "Beatle cut" was shocking, or since Hair was released, or since you first saw a male president of a college or CEO of a big corporation with a ponytail? How long has it been since you first went to a job interview and the interviewer had his hair over his shoulders?
There's no law of nature that says men have short hair. Back in the good old days of America's early history, there wasn't a human-made law that stopped Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin from letting their hair flow. In today's America, there are state and federal laws, though, against discrimination based on gender.
It's time Texas moved forward into the 21st century--or at least back to the 18th.
Screen capture shows Kenneth Fails, age 12, of Itasca Middle School in Texas (screen capture from CBS 11. No threat to its copyright is intended)
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