African-American girl faces expulsion over 'natural hair'

[Igel]

50. And that's the point.

If it was a common hair style, it wouldn't be much of a distraction. Perhaps in the way and blocking other students' line of sight, but not a distraction.

Then again, it wouldn't be "unique" and so it wouldn't be part of her "identity." Any more than KS, who came in to work every week with different color hair, considered that part of her identity--this week platinum blond, the next week brown, the following week red, the week after that blue or green or yellow or purple. Then one day she came in with it mousy brown, her natural color. "Everybody's doing colors. I'm unique." The percentage of her friends dyeing their hair odd color reached a critical point and she stopped.

At my school I've sent kids to the AP for "distracting" when I thought nothing much either way of the hairstyle. One clear sign that it's a distraction is that it starts distracting kids. That means instead of learning being what's important, the all important "look at me! I'm special! I'm not like the other 7 billion people!" No, just the middle 5 billion.


As for "natural," I'd assume that means she washes it and just lets it dry. No brushing, no teasing, no shaping. I'm thinking that if she needed to do that, she'd find another hairstyle pronto.