Friday, December 04, 2009

Authoritarian School of the Month

Recursivity's award for the Authoritarian School of the Month goes this month to the Needville Independent School District in Needville, Texas.

These creeps have a rule against long hair for boys in their schools. But it's not the school's business to govern how students can wear their hair. If there are concerns, such as head lice, these can easily be handled by techniques used in other schools.

In this case, the jerks at Needville enforced their rule against a kindergartner who wore his hair long in keeping with his parents' religion. Luckily, the ACLU was there to defend the kid's rights. [Are you a member of the ACLU yet? If not, send them a donation.]

A judge ruled in favor of the kid, but the school appealed. Now the case is being heard in the Appeals Court.

I sure hope Needville gets their butts kicked back to Texas. Why school administrators delight in enforcing these bizarre and arbitrary rules against their students is beyond me. Schools should be about learning and helping students achieve their potential, not authoritarian discipline.

Pictures of the kid here.

4 comments:

Takis Konstantopoulos said...

I grew up in Greece, in a period when Dictators and Religion ruled the country. We were not allowed to have long hair in school. Teachers were checking the hair length and if found longer than normal we were thrown out of class. I spent many years in Texas too and I know the mentality of many Texans (exceptions exist, especially in Austin). It's scary.

Barry said...

This was the normal rule in US schools before the 1970s or so. You're probably just a little too young to remember this. They also sent girls home for wearing A-line skirts or culottes.
I graduated high school in 1966. Needless to say, I wore my hair down to the middle of my back from 1968 until 1992, when I finally
just got tired of dealing with it and needed a change.

Ben said...

And the sign said, "long-haired, freaky people need not apply"...

Theo Bromine said...

At my public highschool, in Toronto, in the 1970s, the boys were allowed long hair and beards somewhat before the girls were allowed to wear pants (instead of skirts/dresses).