They’d better be fair about your hair. The city’s Human Rights Commission issued new guidelines Monday prohibiting discrimination based on a person’s hairstyle. Although they cover everyone, the guidelines focus on protecting black people. “There is a widespread and fundamentally racist belief that black hairstyles are not suited for formal settings, and may be unhygienic, messy, disruptive, or unkempt,” the agency said. Those beliefs, it added, “are often rooted in white standards of appearance and perpetuate racist stereotypes that black hairstyles are unprofessional.” Commission Chair Carmelyn Malalis said hair is a character of race and, therefore, already fell under her agency’s protections. But she said she felt “compelled” to clarify the regulations after seeing a string of complaints from residents and national media reports. The issue made headlines in December, when New Jersey referee Alan Maloney ordered a black high-school wrestler, Andrew Johnson, to cut off his dreadlocks or forfeit a bout. Video of the Buena teen getting his hair shorn went viral, and Maloney, who is white, was suspended. see also Referee with alleged racist past forced wrestler to cut dreadlocks A New Jersey referee with an alleged racist past forced... “I think a lot of people saw that story and had the reaction: How can something like this happen?” Malalis said. “But other people wondered: What is the big deal? “We thought it made sense to make it [clear] . . . that this is race discrimination under our law.” Seven people have filed complaints alleging they were fired or subjected to other discrimination based on their hairstyle. The new guidelines account for health or safety measures, such as hair nets for food workers. But officials said there’s no excuse for a club, for example, barring people because their hair doesn’t meet its standards.<doc-sep>New York City’s new legal guidance on discrimination based on hairstyle is a thing of beauty. It points out that “there is a widespread and fundamentally racist belief that black hairstyles are not suited for formal settings, and may be unhygienic, messy, disruptive, or unkempt”, and deems natural hair textures that are tightly coiled or tightly curled, and black hairstyles such as locs, cornrows, braids, fades, and afros, a protected racial characteristic. This means that is now illegal to target black people based on their hair or hairstyle at work, school or in any public place – and if you do, you may get fined. In a country where our elected representatives think it’s OK to describe ethnic minorities as having a “funny tinge” on live television, it appears that British conversations around the nature of hair texture and hairstyle discrimination, and how they intersect with race, are rudimentary at best. But now is the perfect time to consider the experiences of those of us living in Britain with kinky-coily hair, and whether Britain should introduce similar laws. As a mixed-race black person with tightly coiled hair, I have long been aware that, aside from skin tone, hair texture is arguably the biggest signifier of race, and that having my type of hair has left me open to some difficult life experiences. The “coarser” and more tightly curled your hair is, the more unacceptable it becomes, and hair texture discrimination, like colourism, is a very real occurrence. Beyond that, black hair, as outlined in Emma Dabiri’s forthcoming book Don’t Touch My Hair, has been an intrinsic part of black identity and culture for centuries. Growing up, hairdressers always looked on my hair texture with surprise and sometimes distaste. When my mum decided to give me locs when I was eight, after getting fed up with trying to comb my hair while I cried, my peers told me I looked like a boy and I was asked intrusive questions about how often I washed them. The one time I awkwardly went with my friend to her white hairdresser – who she thought might magically be able to make my hair look like hers – I was told that they didn’t do my texture. This is such a common occurrence for black women in the UK, who are also often charged a premium by high-street hairdressers who do deign to touch our curls, that Stylist magazine ran a hair equality campaign to challenge it in 2017. 00:42 US high school wrestler made to cut dreadlocks or face forfeit – video Watching the video last year of a high-school wrestler in New Jersey being forced to cut off his locs before competing felt like a gut punch – in part because of the way he seemed to accept it. I remember the day my dreadlocks were cut off – I was ecstatic until I looked in the mirror and saw the reality of my hair texture underneath and realised I still wasn’t any closer to being accepted as “normal”. The next time I went to the hairdressers I had my hair chemically straightened, and it was only in 2018, 12 years later, that I saw my natural hair texture again. As I watched the wrestler, Andrew Johnson, I wondered if one reason why he complied with their racist policy – as well as effectively being forced to if he wanted to compete – was that deep down, he knew that ridding himself of his dreadlocks was a step away from unwarranted discrimination. These small, personal incidents can feed into a wider, systemic problem that leaves black people open for humiliation. At the moment, most black British women (and some men, though they’re often protected by shorter hairstyles and, uh, patriarchy) accept that at some point they will experience ignorance, a rogue hand plopping into their coif and perhaps even face being told by a potential employer that they would need to chemically straighten their hair to get a job. And while changing the law may not prevent hair-related racism altogether, emulating New York City’s approach would undoubtedly be a good start, particularly as the natural hair movement becomes more mainstream. In recent years, there have been a number of high-profile examples of hair discrimination in British schools. In January, a five-year-old boy was banned from his school playground because of what his school deemed to be an “extreme” haircut. His mum pointed out that the school’s “hair policy lacks cultural awareness as a grade two haircut is not fair for Josiah’s type of hair and others from different racial backgrounds”. Last September, a 12-year-old boy was banned from a west London school because he wore his hair in dreadlocks, until public pressure forced them to overturn the ruling, and a similar incident occurred with a 14-year-old girl in Kent in 2016, who had to fight her school to be allowed to wear her hair in box braids. All three of these children would have been protected under the new legal guidelines from New York City. Black people in the UK deserve to be safeguarded too.<doc-sep>New Yorkers can no longer be forced to have “professional” hair — whatever that means. They now have the legal right to wear their locks in locs — or au naturale, or styled in afros, cornrows, dreadlocks, twists, braids, Bantu knots and other ‘dos at work, in school, as well as in fitness clubs and nightclubs, under new regulations issued by the New York City Commission on Human Rights on Monday. And any grooming or appearance policies that ban natural hair or hairstyles can be subject to a $250,000 fine. The new guidelines are believed to be the first in the U.S. to highlight the hair discrimination and the bias against natural and textured hairstyles that disproportionately affects black people. The Marines approved braid, twist and “lock” (often spelled loc) hairstyles in 2015, and the Army reversed its ban on cornrows and dreadlocks for women in 2017. “Such policies are rooted in and perpetuate racist notions of what is considered ‘professional’ or ‘appropriate’ in the workplace and public spaces and are violations of the NYC Human Rights Law,” the NYC Commission on Human Rights explained in its press release. The commission is also investigating seven cases involving discrimination based on natural hair or hairstyles, which include black employees “being forced to wear their braided hair up when employees of other ethnicities can wear their long styles down; being fired for wearing her natural hair down; and being told that locs are unacceptable and unclean, and being forced to change her hair as a condition of employment.” This comes after several high-profile cases of students being sent home from school or disciplined for their hair that have sparked nationwide outrage. A 6-year-old in Hewitt, Texas was ordered to cut his locs over winter break before being allowed to return to school last month. His mother, writer T.L. Browning, shared the letter sent by Spring Valley Elementary School on Twitter, asking, “How does his hair affect his ability to learn?” Last August, Clinton Stanley and his 6-year-old son Clinton Jr. were turned away from an Apopka, Fla. private school on the first grader’s first day because the boy was wearing dreadlocks. “If a kid has dreadlocks, that’s your personal standard,” Stanley told his local WESH 2 News station. “Meaning, that’s a personal problem you haven’t overcome, because 95% of the kids who have dreadlocks are African American.” Former Jackson, Miss. news anchor Brittany Noble Jones has alleged that she was fired from her local news station last year after she began going on the air more often with her natural hair; she was told that Nexstar Broadcasting’s company policy stated that talent could not have “shaggy, unkempt” hair on the air. (The network told “Today” that it “vigorously denied” the accusations, and that Jones was axed over excessive absenteeism.) And last fall, a woman working at LA Fitness in Sidell, La. claimed she was fired over her hair — a supervisor allegedly sent her a text stating that her hair did not “meet LA Fitness standards in a fro,” adding, “we want a classy appearance.” NFL player Colin Kaepernick has been called out for his afro, as well as for kneeling during the national anthem to protest the treatment of minorities in the U.S. Michael Vick suggested that Kaepernick “cut his hair” and “try to be presentable” if he wants to ever get signed with another NFL team. Former “Fox News” host Bill O’Reilly was criticized in 2017 after saying he wasn’t listening to Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters of California because of her hair. “I was looking at the James Brown wig,” he said. And in 2015, former “Fashion Police” host Giuliana Rancic was slammed for saying that the dreads Zendaya, then 18, wore to the Oscars probably smelled of “patchouli” and “weed.” “Policies that limit the ability to wear natural hair or hairstyles associated with black people aren’t about ‘neatness’ or ‘professionalism;’ they are about limiting the way black people move through workplaces, public spaces and other settings,” said NYC Human Rights Commissioner and Chair Carmelyn P. Malalis in a written statement. “This new legal enforcement guidance will help school administrators, employers, and providers of public accommodations to understand that black New Yorkers have the right to wear their hair however they choose without fear of stigma or retaliation.” NYC First Lady Chirlane McCray added on Twitter that, “Bias against the curly textured hair of people of African descent is as old as this country and a form of race-based discrimination.” One in five black women told the Perception Institute that they feel social pressure to straighten their hair for work; twice as many as white women. What’s more, a majority of participants in the 2017 study, regardless of race, showed implicit bias against textured hair. Black women in the study also reported suffering more anxiety around their hair, and they spent more on hair care and styling products than white women did. In fact, Nielsen reported last fall that black consumers spent $473 million on hair care. But despite black shoppers’ spending power, the Perception Institute noted that bias against their hair is still strong. For example, hair products servicing natural and textured hair are often housed in the “ethnic” section of stores, while those for straight and smooth hair are stocked in the “beauty” section. But the natural hair movement continues to grow. Hair relaxer sales plummeted 38% between 2012 and 2017, according to market research firm Mintel. Half of black women (51%) also told the 2018 Mintel report that their current hairstyle makes them feel beautiful, and 40% said they are most likely to wear their hair naturally, with no chemicals or heat styling. Former First Lady Michelle Obama, who wore her hair straight throughout her eight years in the White House, also appeared on the cover of Essence magazine last year wearing her natural curls.<doc-sep>New York City is seeking to put an end to policies that restrict or ban natural hair and hairstyles closely connected to racial, ethnic and cultural identities. The New York City Commission on Human Rights issued new legal guidelines Monday clarifying that it considers such restrictions to be unlawful discrimination that disproportionately affects black people and those of African descent. “My hope is that entities throughout the country re-examine their policies and really ask themselves what this is based on,” said Carmelyn P. Malalis, chairwoman of the city’s human rights commission. It crafted the new guidelines amid recently filed complaints about alleged discrimination based on natural hairstyles. The agency is now investigating seven such cases, it said. New York City law protects people whose hair and hairstyles are closely linked with their ethnic or racial identity, but the new guidelines explicitly state for the first time that these types of prohibitions constitute illegal, discriminatory practices. They also note that hair restrictions, whether in the workplace, at schools, museums or night clubs, have most often taken a heavy toll on black people who are “forced to choose between their livelihood or education and their cultural identity and hair health.” Among the examples of legal violations cited by the human rights commission are grooming policies prohibiting twists, braids, cornrows, Afros and Bantu knots or practices requiring employees to straighten or chemically relax their hair. Potential violators could be businesses, employers, youth groups or sports teams requiring such grooming policies. The commission can seek a range of remedies for this type of discrimination, including up to $250,000 for willful and wanton violation of the law, Ms. Malalis said. New York City is one of the first jurisdictions in the country explicitly clarifying that these types of hair bans are racial discrimination, according to the commission. “My hope is that other jurisdictions follow suit,” Ms. Malalis said. Write to Keiko Morris at Keiko.Morris@wsj.com<doc-sep>
In what may be a first in the country, New York City banned policies and practices that penalize black people based on the texture and style of their hair, saying such actions violate their human rights and are against the law. The New York City Commission on Human Rights announced this week that it is issuing guidance stating that the same law that prohibits discrimination based on race, gender or religion applies to hair – an extension, and intrinsic part, of black identity. “One of my favorite photographs of President Barack Obama is him in the Oval Office leaning down to allow 5-year-old Jacob Philadelphia to touch his hair and how powerful a message of affirmation that was,’’ said New York City Human Rights Commissioner and Chairwoman Carmelyn Malalis. “As we were developing the guidance, we had a lot of conversations about the harm that is done to people when they are stigmatized and controlled in regards to who they are and how they move through space. Today being Presidents Day buoys our hope that legislators will take notice.” The law bans such bias in the workplace, in schools and in public spaces ranging from restaurants to nightclubs to museums. Though the legal protections apply to any group whose hairstyles are associated with their ethnic identity, for those of African descent, hair texture and styles have often been singled out and are a particular target for abuse. Wrestler forced to cut locks to compete:Parents of wrestler forced to cut dreadlocks grateful for outpouring of support Black female senator says bias remains part of system:Black female senator: Arrest shows the bias that still exists in justice system In December, there was outrage after a 16-year-old athlete named Andrew Johnson was forced by a referee to cut his locks before he could proceed with his wrestling match. Five years ago, the U.S. Department of Defense implemented a ban on afros, braids and twists. It reversed the policy after a backlash. Brittany Noble-Jones said she faced hair discrimination when she was fired from her job as an anchor with WJTV in Jackson, Mississippi, last year. She alleged that wearing braids on air triggered internal performance reviews and ultimately her termination. Noble-Jones, who’s based in New York, called the city commission's announcement “huge.” “The fact we have been worried about this all these years is one thing, but I’m very excited we can move forward and rock our hair and wear it the way God intended us to wear it,” she said. Where did the afro hairstyle come from?The roots of the Afro WJTV and its parent company, Nexstar, responded in a statement that they "maintain a strict zero-tolerance policy which prohibits harassment, discrimination or retaliation of any type. Allegations that Ms. Jones’ employment was terminated for her choice of hairstyles have no basis in fact and are vigorously denied.'' The New York City Commission said it is looking into seven cases in which black workers say they were targeted based on their hair, from being threatened with termination if they did not stop wearing locks, which the employer deemed "unclean," to being made to pull back their braids though their co-workers were allowed to wear their hair down. Folks can't get over losing Amazon:New York's Amazon rejection exposes US opportunity gap and Democrats' political disconnect Payless is going out of business:Payless liquidation sale prices: What you need to know about store closing sales Such complaints, along with a litany of incidents around the country in which black workers and school children have been harassed because of their hair, prompted the commission to clarify that the city’s law against discrimination applies in those instances. “This is big,” said Noliwe Rooks, professor of Africana studies at Cornell University. “Hair is connected to civil rights … and needs to be protected.” Black hair has had a symbolic potency in the USA since the 1800s and has been a stand-in for a kind of black identity that doesn't want to assimilate. “It’s at the moment of when you had large numbers of African-Americans leaving enslavement and the Great Migration, so there was more contact between communities on more equal footing,” Rooks said. "The narrative is ‘You just don’t look civilized. You just don’t look professional.’ ” Natural hair became a powerful symbol of pride and militancy during the Black Power movement that emerged in the 1960s. “It’s less about fitting in,” Rooks said.