Parents and students alike are calling a hair “dress code” at a charter high school in Malden, Massachusetts racist after black female students are said to have been suspended and disciplined for wearing hair extensions and braids.
Parents of two students told Boston 25 News said their daughters have been kicked off their sports teams and barred from prom at Mystic Valley Regional Charter as part of discipline for refusing to take out their braids. Others have been suspended – but these parents say they’re not backing down.
Maya said that school officials first pulled her aside two weeks ago after she and her sister Deanna, both African American, had their hair braided at a local salon. Their adoptive mother, Colleen Cook, received a call from the school minutes later.
“The school basically said that they didn’t want anything artificial or unnatural in their hair,” said Colleen Cook.
The school’s policy says students may not have a hairstyle distracting to other students and hair extensions are not allowed. Colleen argued that the policy only targets black students.
“We told them there’s nothing wrong with their hair the way it is. Their hair is beautiful, there’s no correcting that needs to be done,” said Colleen.
Deanna Cook said hair extensions and braids are integral to African American culture.
“It makes me feel like my culture and my hair was not important enough to be represented around the school,” Cook told Boston 25 News.
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Both Maya and Deanna refused to take out their braids and were punished with daily detention. Last week, Colleen said it became worse.
“All the little black children were marched down for a hair inspection, whether they had braids or not, and asked, ‘are those extensions’ ‘are your braids real or not?’” said Colleen.
In a statement, school officials told Boston 25 News, “Our policies…foster a culture that emphasizes education rather than style, fashion or materialism. Our policy on hair extensions, which tend to be very expensive, is consistent with…the educational environment that we believe is so important to our students’ success.”
Colleen said the school’s policy doesn’t send a message of success to her daughters.
“It really affects them to their core and tells them, you’re not good enough, you need to change,” she said.
She has filed a complaint with the NAACP and the anti-defamation league – and says so far, no response from school officials.
I feel that what the girls have been put through is ritual humiliation