5-Year-Old Doesn't Have to Cut His Hair
Adriel Arocha, a 5 year old boy who attends school in the Needville (TX) Independent School District, wears his hair in two long braids. He and his parents argue that the hairstyle promotes his Native American heritage and religious beliefs. The school district argued that it was "not really open to letting 5-year-olds make their own rules” and told him to comply with the school's dress code which requires boys (but not girls) to keep their hair short and unbraided.
After "Adriel’s parents attempted to convince district officials to grant their son a religious exemption," the school board voted to let Adriel "wear his hair in a tightly woven single braid down his back with the hair behind his ears, out of his eyes and the braid tucked into the collar of his shirt." The school superintendent expressed pride in Needville's "structure and discipline." The school district apparently takes less pride in the Constitution's guarantees of freedom of religion and freedom of expression.
Fortunately, after Adriel was suspended for rejecting the school board's "compromise" and returning to school with twin braids worn outside his shirt, the ACLU stepped in. [more ...]
A federal judge ruled yesterday that the school can't substitute its interest in conformity for Adriel's sincerely held religious beliefs.
U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison ruled that Needville ISD is permanently barred from forcing 5-year-old Adriel Arocha to comply with terms of a dress-code exemption policy the district created specifically for the boy. That policy “violates not only Adriel Arocha’s free exercise rights, but also his rights to free expression and his parents’ due process rights,” Judge Ellison said in court documents released Wednesday.
Judge Ellison noted that Adriel's hairstyle isn't disruptive -- indeed, it couldn't be, given that girls are permitted to wear their hair in long braids. Judge Ellison also rejected the school district's contention that Adriel's hairstyle was a matter of "personal choice" and not the result of religious convictions, given his inability to point to a specific religious text that instructed him to wear his hair long. It isn't up to courts or the government to decide whether a personal religious belief fits within a particular religious dogma, Judge Ellison noted.
“Plaintiff Arocha is only required to show that he himself has these ‘deeply held religious beliefs,’ which he has done,” Judge Ellison said in the ruling. “He describes his hair as ‘an outward extension of who we are and where we come from, our ancestry and where we’re going in life.’ He taught Adriel Arocha that his hair demonstrates ‘how long he has been here’ and ‘is an extension of who (Adriel) is.’”The judge ruled that forcing Adriel to wear a 13-inch braid inside his shirt would not only be "physically burdensome" for the next 11 years of his school life, the policy would act to "influence him to cut his hair in violation of his religious beliefs. In the alternative, it forces him to choose between the generally available benefit of attending Needville public schools, or, on the other hand, following his religious beliefs."
Putting aside the religious question (which makes the case easy), constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe has argued that the Constitution guarantees a right to personal autonomy -- a right to define one's own identity. That seems to me to be a part of the freedom to be an individual, unique American -- a freedom the government should not lightly take from us simply because some governmental rule-makers prefer (or take pride in) conformity.
And really, aren't schools supposed to be teaching individuals, as opposed to tending sheep?
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