A federal appeals court maintained that it is OK to discriminate against traditionally black hairstyles, like locs.
The 3-0 ruling came down on Sept. 15 when the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a claim from a 2014 ruling that said racial discrimination had to be based on characteristics that didn’t change, and the hairstyle didn’t qualify as “immutable.”
“We recognize that the distinction between immutable and mutable characteristics of race can sometimes be a fine (and difficult) one, but it is a line that courts have drawn,” U.S. Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan wrote for the most recent ruling. “So, for example, discrimination on the basis of black hair texture (an immutable characteristic) is prohibited by Title VII, while adverse action on the basis of black hairstyle (a mutable choice) is not.”
A black women named Chastity Jones, who was getting ready to start a job with Catastrophe Management Solutions in Mobile, Alabama, in 2010, claimed that the company discriminated against her because of her locs. Jones said that a white human resources manager told her that her locs were against company policy since they “tend to get messy.” After Jones refused to change her hairstyle, she claims her offer was withdrawn, and she complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The commission filed a lawsuit on Jones’ behalf in 2013, stating that withdrawing her contract based on her hairstyle is racial discrimination because “dreadlocks are a manner of wearing the hair that is physiologically and culturally associated with people of African descent.” The EEOC argued that race is a social construct not solely defined by traits that can’t be changed. It also asserted that the “hairstyle can be a determinant of racial identity.”