By Ashley Johnson / Broadcast version by Mary Schuermann Kuhlman reporting for the Kent State-Ohio News Connection Collaboration.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When Kent State University junior Tayjua Hines was in Catholic elementary school, she was often a target of discrimination because of her hair.

"Around 8th grade, I started wearing my hair out," said Hines, now the president of Kent State University's Black United Students. "By then, my mom had stopped doing my hair, so it was really just me doing my hair myself and I had it in an afro. The principal walked up to me and was like, 'Oh, you having a bad hair day? Ha, ha, ha, I am too.' I wasn't having a bad hair day, I just had my afro out."

Like Hines, many African Americans have experienced discrimination in school and work environments based on their natural hairstyles, but one bill is trying to change that.

A campaign founded by Dove and California state senator Holly J. Mitchell on April 22, 2019, pushes for passage of the CROWN Act (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair).

It was begun "to ensure protection against discrimination based on race-based hairstyles, by extending statutory protection to hair texture and protective styles such as braids, locs, twists and knots in the workplace and public schools," according to the CROWN Act's website.

Under H.R. 5309, those who allege discrimination would be able to file a civil action.

Geraldine Nelson, president of Portage County's NAACP, said there has been a long history of discrimination based on appearance.

"Historically, African Americans or these characteristics that are associated with dark skin, curly hair, you know those socially have been characterized in the negative," Nelson explained. "And so, we're saying that that is unequal treatment."

Within the last few years, there have been many reports of black students, both male and female, being banned from graduation or attending school. The public outcry on the lack of diversity of students' pictures and hairstyles in one Georgia school resulted in the school taking down the pictures.

Seven states, including California, Washington and Colorado have all passed the CROWN Act, but 17 states, such as Oregon, Florida and West Virginia, were not successful passing it.

The CROWN Act passed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Sep. 21 but is still waiting to be approved by the U.S. Senate.

A local law was passed in Cincinnati this year.

Ohio representatives Juanita Brent, D-Cleveland, and Paula Hicks-Hudson, D-Toledo, both introduced the legislation in the state and understand the national need for the CROWN Act, too.

"It's important that people see themselves in government," Brent contended. "It's important that people know that discrimination is not okay and we're still not to the place where people are being accepted for what they bring to the table, instead of just what they look like when they come to the table."

Brent's career in politics began when she attended a candidates' night and learned that the majority of the candidates wanted to reduce funding for the local community center.

Learning the importance of fighting for her community was a catalyst and helps Brent stay motivated to stay in politics. The personal connection to her community has followed her in bringing forth bills.

"I'm a black woman that lives here in America, who, socially, people tell you that you need to wear your hair straight, you need to look this way," Brent lamented. "And apparently for the most part, even right now, I wear braids and sometimes that's not always considered as the socially accepted appearance for when you're working."

In a 2019 study by Dove, black women were found 30% more likely to receive a formal grooming policy in the workplace.

In that same report, when two images of a woman with a Caucasian background and an African American woman were shown with the same hairstyle, the white woman was rated 25% higher in "job readiness" than the black woman.

The study showed the bias towards African Americans in workplaces and how conformity is introduced.

Nelson said the bill is not only important, but also long overdue. Her organization's Legal Defense and Organizational fund has also been involved in advocating to end hair discrimination for the Black community, including the 2020 incident of a Black Texan teen being banned, for his hairstyle, from walking across a stage.

Chelsea Johnson, a sociologist who studied the natural hair movement at USC, believes this bill is a much needed first step in protecting women of color, according to a Los Angeles Magazine article.

"These stigmas and associations [over a Black person's natural hair] have persisted through slavery, Jim Crow, and to the present day," Johnson observed. "Associations between kinky hair and wildness, craziness, and dirtiness become barriers, especially for women of color working in professional and service sectors here in Los Angeles, across the country, and in many parts of the world with similar histories of colonization and slavery."

This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.


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The Montana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed class-action lawsuit challenging a measure barring people from listing a gender on their birth certificate other than the one they were born with.

Montana lawmakers passed Senate Bill 280 in 2021, which requires a court order to change gender on a birth certificate. A state court issued an injunction against the measure but now the state health department has put a total ban on changes to sex designations on birth certificates.

Akilah Deernose, executive director of the ACLU of Montana, called the measure part of a "concerted and unrelenting attack" on the civil rights of people who identify as transgender.

"We've previously sued on the birth certificate issue," Deernose pointed out. "Once again, we're seeing the state implement laws and rules and policies that unfairly target transgender people."

On the other side, some people argued birth certificates contain vital statistics and should be based on the facts at the time of birth. The suit awaits action in state court.

Deernose noted beyond privacy rights, the birth certificate measure has the potential to force a person to declare themselves to be someone other than who they are, based on their declared identity.

"And who they know themselves to be," Deernose observed. "That puts them at risk of discrimination and also forces them to out themselves every time they share those identity documents."

The suit also challenges a motor vehicle department policy forbidding changing sex designations on driver's licenses.

New York state lawmakers have appointed members to the Community Commission on Reparations Remedies, created through legislation Gov. Kathy Hochul signed in 2023.

Its goal is to examine the legacy of slavery and its continuing impacts on black New Yorkers. The commission will develop a report outlining recommendations for addressing these inequities.

Linda J. Mann, co-founder of the African American Redress Network, said there is one problem facing the commission: a lack of funds.

"It is absolutely imperative that funds for these types of task force, because of the amount of research that's going into it, is an imperative," Mann emphasized.

While the bill had plenty of Democratic support, it drew the ire of Republican lawmakers.

Many areas of the country are determining how to redress past disparities Black people face. A recent report found philanthropies have received millions in funds stemming from depriving Black people of opportunities to build wealth similar to those of their white counterparts.

The New York commission will have to present its findings in 2025.

A 2021 Pew Research survey showed three-quarters of Black Americans surveyed support reparations, while only 18% of white Americans support it.

Along with the U.S., countries worldwide are navigating reparations, with Mann noting they are not always compensatory.

"We're not talking about just altering economic wellness," Mann pointed out. "There's other ways in which historical harms have led to disparities in education, in health, in housing."

Beyond New York, California is the only other state to have created a reparations commission. California's reparations task force recommended some compensatory reparations based on factors such as health harms, mass incarceration and over-policing, housing discrimination and the devaluation of African American businesses. But, it wasn't certain how much all of this would amount to.

By Faith Fistler for Kent State NewsLab.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan.

The first time Tyana Barton was singled out because of her hair was when she was told to straighten it before a dance recital.

"That was like the first time in maybe 10 years I've ever had to straighten my hair. So I was like, distraught about that," Barton said. "And everybody was just like, 'it's not that serious'. And I'm like, 'it is, though. It is.'"

At the predominantly white studio in Dayton, Barton's instructor wanted all the dancers to look the same for a particular performance. Barton, being the only Black dancer, was asked to straighten her afro-textured hair to comply.

"I'm looking at all of these other girls with long hair, and it's just like perfectly straight. And then I'm having to go over my hair several times with the straightener just to get it to any form. It made me super emotional," said Barton, who is now a fashion merchandising student at Kent State University.

In Ohio, there is no statewide legal protection against hair-based discrimination from employers and schools. Individuals can be told to change their afros, braids, dreadlocks and twists or denied employment opportunities if it does not align with dress code standards.

The Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act, otherwise known as the CROWN Act, would provide statutory protection for individuals discriminated against for wearing protective hairstyles unique to Black culture.

Rep. Juanita Brent (D-Cleveland) has been trying to get the act off the house floor since 2020. In 2023, she reintroduced House Bill 178 for the third time, now with bipartisan support from republican Rep. Jamie Callender (R-Concord).

"This is my life story. My hair may be straight now, but most times my hair is in braids," Brent said. "And I just think it's crazy that there are people who are being removed from classrooms, who are not allowed to participate in sports events and are being removed from job opportunities because they're choosing to have their hair in braids and afros."

The legislation has already passed in cities such as Columbus, Akron, Cincinnati and Cleveland Heights.

"There are so many places where discrimination is occurring. So sometimes it takes a lot longer to do it in every city, and every community," she said. "Sometimes people don't realize the need for it until it happens to your neighbor, your grandchild, it happens to yourself."

The Ohio Chamber of Commerce has testified against H.B. 178, arguing that it "increases civil liability for employers, limits at-will employment in our state, and hampers the ability for businesses to set their own workplace policies."

Kevin Shimp, who testified on behalf of the Chamber, did not respond to interview requests.

The legislation is currently with the House Civil Justice Committee and has until December 2024 to pass.

"Controlling people's hair is almost like putting people in their place and saying you don't belong here," Brent said.

The history of what is considered an acceptable presentation of Black hair in the United States dates back to slavery when European aesthetics became the standard, said Mwatabu Okantah, department chair and professor of Africana Studies at Kent State University.

"On the one hand, many of our people have just ignored it and have lived according to our own aesthetic values, even within the context of being here in the United States," Okantah said. "Then, others of our people have internalized it and have struggled with extremely negative perceptions of ourselves, seeing ourselves the way white society sees us."

Black people's response to the European aesthetic has gone through cycles of assimilating to the social norm to embracing natural hairstyles in spite of it. Okantah said the cultural shift in recent years could be attributed to changing attitudes and Black people holding more positions of power.

"Enough of us now are scholars, mental health professionals, lawyers, and politicians. And so we have more tools to take that back. So I think the CROWN Act came out of that," he said.

The CROWN Act was introduced in California in 2019. It is now law in around two dozen states. The House of Representatives approved the CROWN Act in 2022, but the Senate did not.

Wendy Greene, a professor at Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law and founder of #FreetheHair, has served as an advisor since the CROWN Act was conceived and has found the experience "rewarding".

"It's been really great to be able to see how this legislation is empowering young people to be advocates, young people to express their racial and cultural identities freely in their schools and their workplaces," Greene said. "And to see in turn, how people are using this legislation to educate and enrich others who may not really be familiar with this kind of discrimination because it's not their experience."

While the legislation will not end racial discrimination, the CROWN Act means employers could be found financially responsible for an individual's loss of job opportunity and emotional or psychological damage, Greene said.

"The major legal obligation is to just to stop engaging in the discrimination in and of itself," she said.


Faith Fistler wrote this article for Kent State News Lab. This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.


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