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Short hair gets student suspended
Categories: Education
Have you ever seen hair that's so short that it's distracting? Neither have I, but that's the excuse one Austin school used for suspending a 7th grade student.
Dereck's mother, Amanda, was told by school officials that the issue was "not worth the fight." She, however, disagrees, and has since contacted the NAACP.
Their position is that the school was putting Dereck under "racist projections" -- or acting on their "phobia" that black people with short hair are more prone to "gang issues," etc.
This stereotype is so absurd, that it's almost difficult to believe any educator could act on it. Although I can't think of any other reason that a school could claim a student's hair was "disruptive" simply because it was short. I'd be interested to know the racial make-up of this particular middle school. The city of Austin, and therefore it's schools, are fairly segregated, and I can imagine that the lone black kid at a mostly-white school could wind up the target of administrators who were just waiting for him to act up.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
NewtonHeath 5-16-2007 @ 1:30PM
I remember my brother who in a rather rebellious stage became a skinhead in the late seventies/early eighties and much to his chagrin was told by one of the nuns at school that his new "bonehead" was a nice clean haircut. People need to address the real problems rather than descending to stereotyping and bigotry.
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Manda 5-16-2007 @ 2:26PM
I cannot believe that they kicked him out over short hair!!! would they rather the boy have a Diana Ross afro? geeze louize people! lets please direct our attention to more important issues!!! no wonder kids are bringing weapons to school. this school and others like it are setting kids up for failure and creating an angry, oppressive environment.
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CLM 5-16-2007 @ 3:10PM
What on earth is "disruptive" hair? If my schoolmates and I could make it through the 80s without being distracted by the hair horrors we thought were cool, I hardly think short hair is going to collectively freak out the student body today.
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Sandyone 5-16-2007 @ 10:08PM
*Please* tell me that there's more to this story.
Until recently, the bald/nearly bald look was mostly worn by black men. I was always jealous that they could get away with it and it looked so good (and I'm neither black nor a man!).
Of course, maybe the kid was just a problem child and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. They shoulda picked a better straw.
A skin-headed white kid would be more distracting, I would think.
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Stephanie 5-16-2007 @ 6:44PM
Eek! A shaved head, everybody run!
This is just ludicrous. That is far from a distracting haircut. I can think of much worse... and if I were that child's mother, I'd be very, very tempted to send him to school in something more distracting. Just buy a wig.
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Lynne 5-16-2007 @ 10:09PM
What, so if a student was going through chemo and all of their hair fell out they'd be sent home for being disruptive? I'm having a hard time believing that his is the very first shaved head in the history of the school.
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