Court Opinion

ID: 9457544
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:24:40.633128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:23.444609
License: Public Domain

ALDRICH, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
A recent law review has concluded, after summarizing the cases,
“What is disturbing is the inescapable feeling that long hair is simply not a source of significant distraction, and that school officials are often acting on the basis of personal distaste amplified by an overzealous belief in the need for regulations.” 84 Harv.L.Rev. 1702 at 1715 (1971).
The connection between long hair and the immemorial problems of misdirected student activism and negativism, whether in behavior or in learning, is difficult to see. No evidence has been presented that hair is the cause, as distinguished from a possible peripheral consequence, of undesirable traits, or that the school board, Delilah-like, can lop off these characteristics with the locks. Accepting as true the testimony that in St. Charles, Missouri, the longer the student’s hair, the lower his grade in mathematics, it does not lead me to believe that shortening the one will add to the other. Indeed, the very fact that such evidence is offered would seem to support the periodical’s conclusion.
The area of judicial notice is circumscribed, but I cannot help but observe that the city employee who collects my rubbish has shoulder-length hair. So do a number of our nationally famous Boston Bruins. Barrel tossing and puck chasing are honorable pursuits, not to be associated with effeteness on the one hand, or aimlessness or indolence on the other. If these activities be thought not of high intellectual calibre, I turn to the recent successful candidates for Rhodes Scholarships from my neighboring institution. A number of these, according to their photographs, wear hair that outdoes even the hockey players. It is proverbial that these young men are chosen not only for their scholastic attainments, but for their outstanding character and accomplishments. What particularly impresses me in their case is that they feel strongly enough about *1078their chosen appearance to risk the displeasure of a scholarship committee doubtless including establishmentarians who may be expected to find it personally distasteful.
It is bromidic to say that times change, but perhaps this is a case where a bromide is in order.