Court Opinion

ID: 9736473
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:57:53.874077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:06.883047
License: Public Domain

*552RATTIGAN, J.
Petitioner Gregor Myers, a minor and a student at Areata High School, was suspended from attendance because of the length of his hair. He brought this action in mandamus, through his mother as guardian ad litem and against the school authorities, to compel his reinstatement. Defendants appeal from the trial court’s order directing issuance of a writ of mandate as prayed.
Defendants are the school district which maintains Areata High School, the five elected members of the governing board of the district, the district superintendent, and the principal and the vice-principal of the school. Petitioner was 15 years old in 1966. In his petition, he alleged that on October 19, 1966, he was a “student regularly attending . . . Areata High School”; that Ramon A. Fauria, the school’s vice-principal, suspended him on that date “for not abiding by the school policy regarding personal appearance”; that the suspension was subsequently approved by the school district governing board; and that it was “arbitrary and capricious. ’ ’
The trial court issued an alternative writ of mandate when the action was commenced. Defendants answered the petition. They admitted the fact of petitioner’s suspension, but alleged in substance that he had been suspended because the length of his hair violated a “regulation . . . with respect to student dress and appearance” which the governing board had duly adopted pursuant to its rulemaking power as set forth in section 10604 of the Education Code. The answer pleaded the text of the “regulation,” which is hereinafter quoted in full. Defendants further alleged that “extremes” in hair style of both boy and girl students are “disruptive” of the educational function of a school, and that petitioner’s hair style had this effect at Areata High School. They also denied that petitioner was a “student regularly . . . attending” the school, and raised issues concerning his nonresidence in the Areata Union High School District.
It was established at the trial that petitioner was suspended because the length of his hair violated that portion of the school’s “dress policy” which provided that “extremes of hair styles are not acceptable.” The full text of the “policy” appeared in a “Student Handbook” (and, apparently, in no other formal source). Petitioner had received a copy of the handbook, as had all students. A copy was received in evidence at the trial. The “dress policy,” as identified in the testimony of the district superintendent, is stated in the open*553ing paragraphs of part V of the handbook. These paragraphs read as follows:
“V. School Policies
‘ ‘ Campus Clothes—Extremes of dress and personal appearance are not conducive to the well being of all. Simplicity, neatness, cleanliness, and good taste are the keynote for school dress. Excessive tightness in clothes as well as extremes in shirt tails and similarly, extremes of hair styles are not acceptable.
“Girls shall wear skirts and blouses or sweaters or appropriate dresses. Girls [sic] clothes shall fit properly and be in current taste and style.
“Boys shall wear conventional slacks or jeans properly adjusted. Shirts shall be buttoned to within one button of the collar. Shirt tails with a square cut or with a soft curve designed for outside wear and in good taste are acceptable wear.
“Extremes in dress, in style, and in individual taste are to be avoided.” (Italics added.)1
The evidence at the trial did show that “regulations” were enforced by the school principal “and his delegated authority.” In practice, the principal’s “delegated authority” was the vice-principal, Mr. Fauria. Fauria testified that the school’s physical education department acted as a screening group for him on the subject of student hair styles: “They identify students with the extreme hair styles . . . they talk *554to the student first, they try to get their cooperation, and then they refer them to me when their efforts have failed. ’ ’
The physical education teacher who reported petitioner to the vice-principal was James Cady, who also testified. Cady said that five physical education teachers “police more or less” students for long hair. He (Cady) had noted the length of petitioner’s hair, spoke to him about it, and sent him to the vice-principal before the suspension occurred.
The defense witnesses were interrogated concerning the meaning of the words “extremes of hair styles.” Mr. Fauria testified that he regarded 1 ‘ extremes of hair styles ’ ’ as meaning “deviation from acceptable wear,” and that “extremes” meant “deviations” which were not acceptable to him. He considered that a bald-shaven head would be “extreme” on the one hand, the hair of a boy who had never visited a barber would be “extreme” on the other. Petitioner’s hair, he said, was not within “normal” range: “it was much longer than the range of students at Areata High School.” On the same subject, Cady testified that a boy’s “ears should be showing and ... [if his hair is] down to the collar and starting to turn up or something like that, it is too long. ’ ’
The vice-principal also testified that “extremes of hair styling” could interfere with the “learning situation” at Areata High School. He said that the type of haircut affected by petitioner is a “focal point for conversation” and “discussion” among students, and that “long hair” is an issue which interferes with classroom decorum.
Robert Meeks, another teacher at Areata High School (but not a physical education instructor), testified that the “length of hair style” was a “talked about item” among' the students, and that they discussed it in class to the point where it interfered with the conduct of a class by distracting the students from their classroom work. He testified that they also talked about other subjects (such as athletics, ears and girls), and that discipline in such matters was always a problem in a secondary school.
Little, if any, of the foregoing evidence associated petitioner’s hair (as distinguished from long hair as a general topic) with classroom distractions at the school. However, Fauria and Cady both testified that, during the Í965-1966 (i.e., the preceding) school year, some of petitioner’s fellow students (“vigilantes,” as counsel for the school authorities put it) took exception to the length of his hair, seized him, gave him a forcible haircut, and slightly injured him in the process.. .
*555Cady testified that on October 18, 1966, petitioner’s hair was “too long . . . beyond what we allowed.” He asked petitioner how much time he needed to have it cut. Petitioner was not cooperative, whereupon Cady sent him to the vice-principal. The latter suspended petitioner after a further conversation produced no results. The vice-principal then wrote a letter to petitioner’s mother, stating in pertinent part that “ [Y]our son, Gregor, has been suspended from school for not abiding by the school policy regarding personal appearance. In the opinion of school personnel, your son was in violation of this policy.”
So far as the trial record shows, Mr. Cady’s standards of a male student hair style which was “too long” (because, as he put it, the hair obscures the student’s ears, or reaches his collar, or “is starting to turn up”) were not communicated to petitioner or to anyone else; an “acceptable” hair style, in terms of maximum permissible length or by reference to his ears or his collar or other criteria, was not defined to petitioner or to his mother by anyone; and neither of them was told how much of a haircut would produce a style which was “acceptable” as something other than “extreme.” Two portrait photographs of petitioner each taken on the evening preceding his suspension, were received in evidence at the trial.2
Upon the foregoing evidence, the trial court found among other things that the school’s “rule” that “ ‘extremes of hair styles are not acceptable’ is so vague and indefinite as to render said rule unconstitutional and unenforceable,” and that the rule “was not properly enforceable against . . . [petitioner] due to its unconstitutionality.” The court made substantially the same statements as “conclusions of law,” and thereupon entered the order from which defendants appeal.
*556Defendants first contend that the “dress policy” at Areata High School, to the effect that 1 ‘ extremes of hair styles' are not acceptable,” is a reasonable exercise of the governing board’s rulemaking power in the area of student discipline, and that it is not constitutionally unenforceable by reason- of its language. Because of its language, however, we hold against both contentions; we affirm the order requiring petitioner’s reinstatement.
The California Legislature has the constitutional duty and power to maintain a system of free public education in this state. (Cal. Const., art. IX, §§ 1, 5.) By statute, the Legislature has delegated to local school district governing boards the authority to operate the public schools within their respective political jurisdictions (Ed. Code, § 9213), and to promulgate necessary rules and regulations controlling student conduct. (Id., § 106054) Students are required to comply with such regulations (id., § 106095) under pain of suspension. (Id., § 10604 [quoted in fn. 4, ante.] See, generally, Akin v. Riverside Unified School Dist. Board of Education, supra, 262 Cal.App.2d 161, 167.)
*557In some areas of student conduct involving dress and appearance, such regulations may clash with constitutional rights; and contemporary experience demonstrates this to be notably true of school regulations controlling male students’ hair. (See, e.g., Akin v. Riverside Unified School Dist. Board of Education, supra, 262 Cal.App.2d 161; Ferrell v. Dallas Independent School Dist., supra, 392 F.2d 697; Leonard v. School Committee of Attleboro (1965) 349 Mass. 704 [212 N.E.2d 468, 14 A.L.R.3d 1192]; Comment, The Power of School Officials to Regulate Student Appearance (1966) 3 Harv. Legal Comm. 1; Annot., 14 A.L.R.3d 1201.)
The wearing of a beard by one engaged in the educational process is an expression of his personality and, wearing it, he is entitled to the protection of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. (Finot v. Pasadena City Board of Education (1967) 250 Cal.App.2d 189, 201-202 [58 Cal.Rptr. 520] [teacher]. See Akin v. Riverside Unified School Dist. Board of Education, supra, 262 Cal.App.2d 161 at p. 167 [high school student].) Because a long hair style is indistinguishable from a beard for constitutional purposes,6 a male affecting it in a school is entitled to the same protection.  Adulthood is not a prerequisite: the state and its educational agencies must heed the constitutional rights of all persons, including schoolboys. (Board of Education v. Barnette, supra (fn. 6, ante), 319 U.S. 624 at p. 637 [87 L.Ed. 1628 at p. 1637, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 147 A.L.R. 674], See In re Gaullt (1967) 387 U.S. 1, 13 [18 L.Ed.2d 527, 538, 87 S.Ct. 1428]; Akin v. Riverside Unified School Dist. Board of Education, supra, at p. 167; Robinson v. Sacramento City etc. School Dist. (1966) 245 Cal.App.2d 278, 291 [53 Cal.Rptr. 781].)
*558School authorities, nevertheless, may impose more stringent regulations upon the constitutional rights of minors than upon those of adults: ‘ ‘where there is an invasion of protected freedoms ‘. . . the power of the state to control the conduct of children reaches beyond the scope of its authority over adults. . . .’ (Citation.)” (Ginsberg v. New York (1968) 390 U.S. 629, 638 [20 L.Ed.2d 195, 203, 88 S.Ct. 1274] (quoted, in a school-student context, in Akin v. Riverside Unified School Dist. Board of Education, supra, 262 Cal. App.2d 161 at p. 166.)  It follows that not every limitation upon the exercise of secondary students’ constitutional rights, by a school district governing board, is prohibited (Akin v. Riverside School Dist. Board of Education, supra); and, where there is empirical evidence that an aspect of a student’s dress or appearance (such as a hair style) has a disruptive effect within a school, the board may prohibit it. (Id., at pp. 168-169; Ferrell v. Dallas Independent School Dist., 392 F.2d 697 at pp. 699, 702-703 (cert, den., 393 U.S. 856 [21 L.Ed.2d 125, 89 S.Ct. 98]); Leonard v. School Committee of Attleboro, supra, 212 N.E.2d 468 at p. 472. See Finot v. Pasadena City Board of Education, supra, 250 Cal.App.2d 189 at p. 202.) Accordingly, the governing board in the present case could validly exercise its statutory rulemaking power to require that petitioner wear his hair at a shorter length.
The board need not have enacted a formal regulation to achieve this result, but one materialized in the form of the “dress policy” which states that “extremes of hair styles are not acceptable. ’ ’ Petitioner has not asserted, in the trial court or here, that he had the right to defy any rule or instruction directed to his hair: he challenged this one—the “dress policy”—for its vagueness. (He also alleged that his hair complied with it.) In the pleadings, both parties alleged that he was suspended because his hair violated the “policy”; the vice-principal so testified; and defendants have stood squarely upon the “policy,” both at trial and on the appeal. The propriety of the suspension therefore depends upon the validity of the “policy.” Both, in our view, were invalid.
Acting in this constitutional field, a school district governing board must act constitutionally. The exercise of its rulemaking power must meet the standards of reasonableness enunciated in Bagley v. Washington Township Hospital Dist. (1966) 65 Cal.2d 499, 501-502 [55 Cal.Rptr. 401, 421 P.2d 409]; the restraint imposed by its regulations must rationall*559y relate to the enhancement of the educational function, the public benefits produced must outweigh the consequent impairment of the student’s constitutional rights, and there can be no alternatives “less subversive” of those rights. (Akin v. Riverside Unified School Dist. Board of Education, supra, 262 Cal.App.2d 161 at pp. 167-168.) In the present case there is substantial evidence that long hair, on male students, had a disruptive effect at Areata High School. Because of the public’s obvious interest in an undistracted educational process at the school, the “dress policy” (as it affected male students’ hair) met the first two tests mentioned above.
As to the third Bagley test, the governing board’s “policy”7 fails.  As we have seen, its inhibition of hair styles restrains the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. In this area, the standards of permissible statutory vagueness are strict and government may regulate “only with narrow specificity.” (N.A.A.C.P. v. Button (1963) 371 U.S. 415, 432 [9 L.Ed.2d 405, 417-418, 83 S.Ct. 328]. See Fort v. Civil Service Com. (1964) 61 Cal.2d 331, 337 [38 Cal.Rptr. 625, 392 P.2d 385].) In the Finot and Akin cases, the applicable regulations prohibited the wearing of beards at school. (Finot v. Pasadena City Board of Education, supra, 250 Cal.App.2d 189, at p. 191; Akin v. Riverside Unified School Dist. Board of Education, supra, 262 Cal.App.2d 161 at p. 163.) This was “narrow specificity,” because a beard—and its presence or absence—is a fact.
‘' Extremes of hair styles, ’ ’ however, are not facts: whether a given style is “extreme” or not is a matter of opinion, and the definitive opinion here rested in the sole— and neither controlled nor guided—judgment of a single school official. To him, an “extreme” style was “deviation from acceptable wear,” but it was he alone who decided what was “acceptable” in the first instance and what was “deviation” in the next. While his personal good faith in the matter is clear, the “policy” is “far from the kind of narrow *560exception to freedom of expression which a state may carve out to satisfy the adverse demands of other interests of society,” (Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson (1952) 343 U.S. 495, 504 [96 L.Ed. 1098, 1107, 72 S.Ct. 777]), and it totally lacks the “specificity” required of governmental regulations which limit the exercise of constitutional rights.
A “law” violates due process “if it is so vague and standardless that it leaves the public uncertain as to the conduct it prohibits or leaves judges and jurors free to decide, without any legally fixed standards, what is prohibited and what is not in each particular case. [Citations.] ” (Giaccio v. Pennsylvania (1966) 382 U.S. 399, 402-403 [15 L.Ed.2d 447, 450, 86 S.Ct. 518].)  The “dress policy” concerning hair styles in the present case is “vague and standardless.” It is not a “law” in the sense that criminal sanctions attend its violation, but a violation means suspension from school.  The importance of an education to a child is substantial (see, e.g., Brown v. Board of Education (1954) 347 U.S. 483, 493 [98 L.Ed. 873, 880, 74 S.Ct. 686, 38 A.L.R.2d 1180]), and the state cannot condition its availability upon compliance with an unconstitutionally vague standard of conduct. (See Bagley v. Washington Township Hospital Dist., supra, 65 Cal.2d 499 at pp. 503-504.)
We recognize that school regulations not unlike the one here involved were upheld in each of the two principal cases which deal with male high school students who were suspended because of the length of their hair. (Ferrell v. Dallas Independent School Dist., supra, 392 F.2d 697; Leonard v. School Committee of Attleboro, supra, 212 N.E.2d 468.) The language of the Ferrell regulation appears in the trial court’s opinion [261 F.Supp. 545], but not in the appellate decision; the Leonard decision mentions the applicable regulation only in passing (212 N.E.2d 468 at p. 470) ; and, apparently, none of the students affected (who were appellants in both cases) challenged the respective regulation upon the ground of vagueness. Therefore, we do not read either decision as constitutional authority for the enforceability of a “policy” which proscribes—but which does not define—“extremes of hair styles. ’ ’
Arguing against vagueness in the “dress policy,” defendants cite decisions which uphold the constitutionality of statutes restraining the emission of “excessive smoke” (People v. Madearos (1964) 230 Cal.App.2d 642 [41 Cal.Rptr. 269]) and of “excessive or unusual noise” (Smith v. Peterson (1955) *561131 Cal.App.2d 241 [280 P.2d 522, 49 A.L.R.2d 1194]) from motor vehicles. But these eases rest upon the premises that the words “excessive smoke” and “excessive or unusual noise” convey ideas which find “adequate interpretation in common usage and understanding” (Smith v. Peterson, supra, at p. 246), and that whether an emission is “excessive” is a fact which is reasonably determinable from ordinary experience. (Id., at pp. 249-250; People v. Madearos, supra, at pp. 644-645.)  The same premises do not exist in the present case. The words “extremes of hair styles” convey no commonly understood meaning, and whether one such style at Areata High School was “extreme” was neither determinable nor predictable by anyone except the vice-principal. The Madearos and Smith decisions, accordingly, do not lend constitutional stature to the “dress policy” allegedly violated by petitioner.
Since—as we have seen—the governing board has the statutory power to regulate aspects of student dress and appearance which have an adverse effect upon the educational process at the school, it may enact regulations which would.be valid because less subversive of the students’ constitutional rights.8 (Bagley v. Washington Township Hospital Dist., supra, 65 Cal.2d 499 at pp. 501-502; Akin v. Riverside Unified School Dist. Board of Education, supra, 262 Cal.App.2d 161 at pp. 167-168.) It has not done so. Therefore, its “policy” prohibiting “extremes of hair styles” cannot be enforced by the suspension of noncomplying students, including petitioner. (Bagley v. Washington Township Hospital Dist., supra, at pp. 506-507.)
The other principal point raised by defendants on the appeal is based upon these facts as shown by the evidence: *562.Petitioner did not reside in Areata Union High School District. He lived in Eureka High School District, but had nevertheless attended Areata High School throughout the 1965-1966 school year and had re-enrolled at, and attended, the school in September 1966. The two districts had entered into a written interdistrict attendance agreement, pursuant to Education Code section 9 covering the 1966-1967 year. The agreement provided that a student residing in either district could attend a school in the other if he had a “proper permit” from the district of his residence. This meant, in petitioner’s case, that he was required to have such permit from the Eureka district in order to attend Areata High School.
No such permit had been issued to petitioner at any time prior to his suspension from attendance at Areata High School. This fact was discovered by the Areata district authorities only after he had been suspended on October 19, 1966. The Eureka district issued a “permit” in the matter on October 20; the evidence does not show who applied for it. On October 31, the Areata district superintendent advised the Eureka High School District, by letter, that the Areata district could not accept petitioner as a student under the interdistrict attendance agreement “because of his failure to comply with school regulations. ”
Prom the foregoing evidence the trial court found that petitioner resided in Eureka High School District, but that—as pleaded in his petition—he had been “a student regularly attending . . . Areata High School”; that he “did in fact enroll in and attend Areata High School . . . and no objection to his attendance at Areata High School was raised by . . . [defendants] until October 31, 1966”; and that the school, therefore, was “by its own inaction estopped” from *563suspending him. By our interpretation of this language, the court found that defendants, having allowed petitioner to attend Areata High School without a permit prior to his suspension, was estopped from suspending him upon the ground that he lacked one.
Defendants, so interpreting the language, challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support an estoppel. However, it was shown (and it is not disputed) that a permit was issued by the school district of petitioner’s residence on October 20, 1966. This meant that he was entitled to attend Areata High School, so far as the interdistriet attendance agreement was concerned, because there had been compliance with the agreement. It follows that his alleged violation of the school’s “dress policy” was the only ground for suspending him, and that the finding that defendants were “estopped” from suspending him on other grounds was—correct or not—unnecessary. Therefore, and because the trial court’s finding on the constitutional point supports the judgment we need not examine the sufficiency of the evidence to support an estoppel. (See 3 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (1954) Appeal, § 103, par. [g], p. 2277.)
Since the interdistrict attendance agreement had been complied with on October 20, 1966, and since the “dress policy” was void (as we have held), defendants were without discretion to exclude petitioner under the suspension pronounced on October 19. Therefore, and contrary to defendants’ final contention on the appeal, mandamus was the proper remedy. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1085; Piper v. Big Pine School Dist. (1924) 193 Cal. 664, 669 [226 P. 926].)
The order directing issuance of a writ of mandate is affirmed.
Devine, P. J., concurred.

“ 921. Every school district shall be under the control of a board of school trustees or a board of education. ’ ’

“ 10609.. All pupils shall comply with the regulations/, pursue the required "course of study, and submit to the authority of the" teachers.;of the schools, ” ' "'•'

A California court has observed that men wear beards as symbols (symbols of masculinity, authority and wisdom, or of nonconformity and rebellion), and that it is the symbolic value which merits constitutional protection. (Finot v. Pasadena City Board of Education, supra, 250 Cal.App.2d 189 at p. 201.) The symbolic value of long hair on a male is probably less obvious: we do not readily accept it as symbolic of masculinity, for example, and in the modern secondary school it may bespeak conformity rather than otherwise. (For a discussion of its symbolism among school students, see Comment, supra, 3 Harv. Legal Comm. 1 at p. 2.) Its symbolic value, however, need not be judicially assessed: the symbolism is subjective in the person wearing it. “A person gets from a symbol the meaning he puts into it, and what is one man’s comfort and inspiration is another’s jest and scorn.” (Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) 319 U.S. 624, 632-633 [87 L.Ed. 1628, 1634-1635, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 147 A.L.R. 674].) If a growth of hair means anything to its wearer (including his right to wear it long), the First Amendment protects him in affecting it, and this is so whether he displays it on his chin or on his scalp.

As previously noted (fn. 1, ante), it is not clear from the evidence that the “policy” (or “regulation”) in question was explicitly adopted by the governing board itself. A further question thus raised is whether the “policy” is in fact that of the board (which is authorized by the Legislature to make necessary rules affecting student conduct) or of another body (which is not). Because our comments presuppose that the “policy” is the board’s, we do not reach this question. The uncertain origins of the “policy,” however, may contribute to the vagueness we find in its language.

*562standard. If necessary, a boy may be suspended from school until Ms hair is trimmed in an acceptable fashion.” (Contreras v. Merced Union Sigh School District (E.D. Cal. 1968) No. F-245-CIV. The quoted language appears in the court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law: as of the date hereof, no formal decision has been published. The italics appearing above have been added.)

“10801. The governing board of any school district may admit to the schools or classes maintained in the district any pupil who lives in another school district which maintains schools or classes of the grade levels which the pupil desires to attend. An agreement providing for such attendance shall be entered into between the governing board and the governing board of the district in wMeh the pupil lives. The agreement shall stipulate the terms upon which the inter district attendance shall be permitted. The terms of the agreement may require the payment of actual cost of education of the pupil, ... or any lesser amount per pupil, as determined by the governing boards in their discretion, but in any event not less than the state apportionments resulting from the attendance. ’ ’