For decades, courts allowed employers to ban natural Black hairstyles. In Rogers v. American Airlines in 1981, a federal court upheld a policy against all-braided hairstyles. In 2016, the Eleventh Circuit ruled in EEOC v. Catastrophe Management Solutions that an employer could rescind a job offer to a Black woman who would not cut her locs. The courts treated hair as changeable, not as a racial trait.
The harm starts young. In 2018, a Black high school wrestler in New Jersey was forced to cut his locs on the mat or forfeit a match. In 2023, Darryl George, a Black student in Texas, was repeatedly suspended over the length of his locs. A 2019 study commissioned by Dove found Black women were 1.5 times more likely than other women to be sent home from work because of their hair.
These rules treat Eurocentric hair as professional and Black hair as a problem. That pushes Black people toward costly and sometimes harmful straightening. The CROWN Act movement responded by adding hair texture and protective styles to anti-discrimination law.