Source: https://openjurist.org/404/us/1042
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 00:39:37+00:00

Document:
EAST SIDE UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT.
It seems incredible that under our federalism a State can deny a student education in its public school system unless his hair style comports with the standards of the school board.
Some institutions in Asia require their enrollees to shave their heads. Would we sustain that regulation if imposed by a public school?
Would we sustain a public school regulation requiring male students to have crew cuts?
'In order to submerge the individual and develop ideal citizens, Sparta assembled the males at seven into barracks and intrusted their subsequent education and training to official guardians. Although such measures have been deliberately approved by men of great genius, their ideas touching the relation between individual and State were wholly different from those upon which our institutions rest; and it hardly will be affirmed that any legislature could impose such restrictions upon the people of a State without doing violence to both letter and spirit of the Constitution.' Id., at 402, 43 S.Ct., at 627.
'This breach of the peace theory is peculiarly liable to abuse when applied against unpopular expressions and practices. It makes a man a criminal simply because his neighbors have no self-control and cannot refrain from violence. The reductio ad absurdum of this theory was the imprisonment of Joseph Palmer, one of Bronson Alcott's fellow-settlers at 'Fruitlands,' not because he was a communist, but because he persisted in wearing such a long beard that people kept mobbing him, until law and order were maintained by shutting him up. A man does not become a criminal because some one else assaults him, unless his own conduct is in itself illegal or may be reasonably considered a direct provocation to violence.' Free Speech in the United States, pp. 151-152 (1942).
'This Court takes judicial notice that hairstyles have altered from time to time throughout the ages. Sampson's locks symbolically signified his virility. Many of the Founding Fathers of this country wore wigs. President Lincoln grew a beard at the suggestion of a juvenile female admirer. Chief Justice Hughes' beard furnished the model for the frieze over the portico of the Supreme Court of the United States proclaiming 'equal justice under law.' Today many of both the younger and older generations have avoided the increased cost of barbering by allowing their locks or burnsides to grow to greater lengths than when a haircut cost a quarter of a dollar.
'Whether hair styles be regarded as evidence of conformity or of individuality, they are one of the most visible examples of personality. This is what every woman has always known. And so have many men, without the aid of an anthropologist, behavioral scientist, psychiatrist, or practitioner of any of the fine arts or black arts.' Richards v. Thurston, D.C., 304 F.Supp. 449, 451.
'Preachers took to pulpits to warn that 'a bobbed woman is a disgraced woman.' In a Missouri courtroom, a mother pleading for the return of her six children who have been living with a guardian heard the oldest of them testify to the judge: 'We don't believe mother is a Christian woman. She bobs her hair.' Men divorced their wives over bobbed hair. Other males banded together with vows to give up shaving until wives agreed to let their hair grow out again. A large department store fired all bobbed haired employees and a hospital discharged bobbed haired nurses.' Severn, The Long And Short of It, p. 122 (1971).
In Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan, 12 Fed.Cas. p. 252, No. 6,546, an alien Chinese was allowed to recover damages under the Civil Rights Act against the sheriff of San Francisco for cutting his hair 'to a uniform length of one inch from the scalp' on entering a prison to serve a five-day sentence for a petty offense. The Circuit Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Field, held that the ordinance made an invidious discrimination against the Chinese ('only the dread of the loss of his queue will induce a Chinaman to pay his fine.' Id., at 255) and was a cruel and unusual punishment. Ibid.
'Long-hair' cases have occasioned a deep division in the Circuits. There is a conflict as to the extent that a student's interest in his hair style enjoys constitutional protection compare Breen v. Kahl, 419 F.2d 1034 (CA7 1969), and Richards v. Thurston, 424 F.2d 1281 (CA1 1970), with Ferrell v. Dallas Ind. School Dist., 392 F.2d 697 (CA5 1968), and Jackson v. Dorrier, 424 F.2d 213 (CA6 1970). Where it has been found to exist, there is a split as to the constitutional basis for such protection. Compare Breen, supra, with Richards, supra. And there is a conflict as to the showing necessary by the school board to justify a hair regulation even among those circuits permitting such a justification. Compare the decision of the Ninth Circuit in the present case, and its companion, King v. Saddleback Jr. College, 445 F.2d 932 (CA9 1971), with Griffin v. Tatum, 425 F.2d 201 (CA5 1970).
Not only is the conflict deep and irreconcilable, but the issue is a recurrent one. There are well over 50 reported cases squarely presenting the issue, students having won in about half of them. In addition to the 37 cases cited in Note, 84 Harv.L.Rev. 1702, 1703 n. 4 (1971), see, e. g., Gfell v. Rickelman, 441 F.2d 444 (CA6 1971); King v. Saddleback Jr. College Dist., 445 F.2d 932 (CA9 1971); Valdes v. Monroe County Bd. of Public Instruction, 325 F.Supp. 572 (S.D.Fla.1971); Axtell v. LaPenna, 323 F.Supp. 1077 (W.D.Pa.1971); Parker v. Fry, 323 F.Supp. 728 (E.D.Ark.1970); Alberda v. Noell, 322 F.Supp. 1379 (E.D.Mich.1971); Lambert v. Marushi, 322 F.Supp. 326 (S.D.W.Va.1971); Martin v. Davison, 322 F.Supp. 318 (W.D.Pa.1971); Dawson v. Hillsborough County, Florida School Board, 322 F.Supp. 286 (M.D.Fla.1971); Watson v. Thompson, 321 F.Supp. 394 (E.D.Tex.1971); Karr v. Schmidt, 320 F.Supp. 728 (W.D.Tex.1970); Freeman v. Flake, 320 F.Supp. 531 (D.Utah 1970); Lansdale v. Tyler Jr. College, 318 F.Supp. 529 (E.D.Tex.1970); Alexander v. Thompson, 313 F.Supp. 1389 (C.D.Cal.1970).
See, e. g., Jackson v. Dorrier, 424 F.2d 213 (CA6 1970), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 850.
See, e. g., Breen v. Kahl, 419 F.2d 1034 (CA7 1969), cert. denied, 398 U.S. 937, 90 S.Ct. 1836, 26 L.Ed.2d 268.

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