Nevada And Shreveport, LA Pass CROWN Act To Ban Hair Discrimination

The battle for hair equity continues to gain moment acrosss the country. Nevada and Shreveport, La. have just passed the The CROWN Act helping advance the a national movement to ban race-baced hair discrimination. 

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The CROWN Act is sponsored by the CROWN Coalition, an alliance founded by Dove, National Urban League, Western Center on Law & Poverty and Color Of Change. The legislation first passed in California in 2019, with a dozen more states passing the Act or legislation inspired by the Act into law since then. New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Minnesota, and Colorado were among the first adopters. A federal bill was reintroduced in Congress in March 2021.

“There are people who think that this is policing hair, and forcing employers to do things they don’t want to do,” said Shreveport City Council LeVette Fuller in a recent interview. “And to those employers that say no, this is an opportunity for you to educate yourself on culture, on traditions outside of the Eurocentric traditions. So that we have a more open workspace and the more work and more open atmosphere across this country.”

The Shreveport City Council passed the “Crown Act” last week Tuesday, following New Orleans, which passed similar legislation this past Decement. It will go into effect on July 8.

Nevada also signed the Act into law on June 4, revising the state’s school policies and enabling its Equal Rights Commision to investigate racial prejudice in employment. The legislation expands the definition of race to include traits associated with race, including protective hairstyles.

“The CROWN Act was a huge deal for me this session,” said Nevada Senator Dina Neal in a recent press release. “I used this bill to set the standard for policy across the state that hair discrimination entitles women of color to a right to redress legal claims based on hair type.”