[Times photo: Stefanie Boyar]
Marcqueez Beal, a 14-year-old Hillsborough student, says two teachers held him down and cut his fluffy Afro. His mother has hired an attorney.

By MELANIE AVE, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 1, 2002

Whether slicked, frizzed, braided, twisted, colored or just long, teenage tresses have irked school officials for decades.

Recently, a 14-year-old Hillsborough middle school student said two teachers held him down and cut his fluffy Afro because they thought it was too long.

"They came in and told me I needed a haircut," said Marcqueez Beal, a seventh-grader at Progress Village Middle School. "I told them I didn't."

[Times photo: Cherie Diez]
Emily "Chuck" Price of St. Petersburg says hairstyles were more of a problem for her in middle than high school.

He had grown his hair for months to be more like the biblical character Samson, who derived his strength from his long locks. He now keeps his hair short, out of fear someone at school will try to cut it again.

Marcqueez's mother, LaShonda Randolph, has hired an attorney and intends to sue.

Although most people agree teachers should not be cutting hair without parents' permission, courts have given schools wide discretion in controlling student appearance. But the subjective way this is sometimes done leaves parents like Randolph questioning whether schools need to police hairstyles at all.

"Children need to be able to express themselves," said Randolph, 30. "As long as the hair is neat and clean, I don't think they need to regulate hair. They're not a barbershop."

For the most part, courts nationwide have said schools can regulate hair and clothing if their restrictions improve discipline and learning. Exceptions have been made for religious reasons, as in the case of eight Rastafarian children in Lafayette, La., who wore their hair in dreadlocks.

The increased authority given to schools can be attributed, in part, to the aftermath of the mass shooting at Columbine High School, says Martha McCarthy, an Indiana University professor who specializes in education law.

In the 1970s as hair grew longer and looser, courts were split as to whether students had a constitutional right to choose their style or schools could impose restrictions.

A decade later, as school safety became a greater concern, the courts gave schools more discretion. Schools often argued their restrictions made schools safer.

"That's a pretty strong justification," McCarthy said. "In the last decade, the courts seem more inclined to uphold dress codes and grooming standards than they did in the heyday of the civil rights movement."

Teenagers have always used hair to assert their individuality and question authority.

In the 1950s, schools considered Elvis look-alikes as rebels. Then came the Beatles imitators, followed by the hippies of the 1960s and 1970s.

In the decades since, schools have cracked down on students for having braids, dreadlocks, spikes and tresses in every color of the rainbow.

In 1996, a third-grader at Grace Christian School in Brandon was told not to return until she got rid of her braids, considered "extreme" by the school. The principal of Brooksville's Parrott Middle School suspended two seventh-graders on St. Patrick's Day in 1999 after they sprayed their hair a shamrock shade and caused a stir in the cafeteria.

Many schools include hair restrictions as part of their dress codes.

"Hair has been a trigger for a long time," said Steven Dubin, professor at the State University of New York's Purchase College who writes about pop culture. "It's a way for adults, for school personnel, to assert their authority."

The Pinellas school system bans hairstyles considered disruptive. Hillsborough requires hair be "clean and neatly groomed."

But to Howard Simon, it shouldn't be what the schools can do, but what they should do.

As executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, Simon said principals should consider the message they send when they discipline children for their hairstyles.

If hairstyles are truly disrupting the school day, that's one thing, he said. But if they merely offend those in authority, that's a different matter.

"Schools need to communicate the message that there's some semblance of freedom in this country," Simon said.

Some local school officials say hairstyles are less of an issue today than provocative clothing.

Largo High School principal Barbara Thornton said schools, like society, now seem to pay little attention to hair.

"Historically, hair has been a way for teenagers to make a statement," she said. "The comical thing to me is, no one is noticing. No one can come out with anything more outlandish than what we've already seen on MTV."

St. Petersburg teen Emily "Chuck" Price, who has Crayola green hair, said hairstyles were more of a problem for her and her friends in middle school than in high school. As a freshman at Gibbs High School, she's had no interference from teachers.

But her hair does attract stares.

"Everybody thinks it's this major thing," said the 14-year-old. "It's not."

Sixteen-year-old Rachel Norris of Tampa, whose brown hair has remnants of pink bangs, said she never got in trouble at school when her hair was cotton candy colored. She has, however, felt a difference in the way she was treated by the principal.

"When my hair went back to normal, he acknowledged me," said Rachel, a freshman at Robinson High. "Before, he didn't."

More often it's parents, not school officials who take issue with hair.

"Parents can be real embarrassed," said Wendy Rice, who works as a psychologist at Mitchell High School in Pasco County and has a private practice in Hillsborough. "Teenagers use their hair to express their individuality or fill a need to fit into an existing group.

"Some want to look very much like their friends. Other kids use it as more of statement of being very different from their parents."

Ginny Price allows her daughter Emily to keep her green locks, but only if she maintains her grades. Price believes the hairstyle decisions should be up to families, not schools.

"I don't think it's any of their business," said Price. "When adults make a big deal out of harmless things, kids wonder, "Why are they fighting about this? Why don't they concern themselves with things that really matter?' "

-- Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Melanie Ave can be reached at (813) 226-3400 or melanie@sptimes.com.

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