Hair
House Passes CROWN Act To Make Race-Based Hair Discrimination A Federal Crime
This has been years in the making.
Five years ago, the states of New York and California made history by making race-based hair discrimination a civil and human rights issue — and a crime. Since then, the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act has passed in 14 states and 34 cities and townships. And, as of today, it is halfway towards the goal of being a federal law.
[SEE ALSO: Biden Administration ‘Strongly Supports’ Bill Banning Hair Discrimination]
On Friday, the House passed the CROWN Act to ban hair discrimination against individuals for their hair texture and natural hairstyles, including locs, braids, and twists. After failing to meet a two-thirds majority vote requirement last month, the bill passed 235-189.
Spearheaded by Dove and its CROWN Coalition, the human and civil rights legislation is part of an ongoing movement to bring awareness to the countless, often-viral, concerns which have resulted in women losing their jobs and students being suspended for having box braids, banned from walking at their graduation for locs, and even having their “too curly” and loc’d hair chopped off by coaches and teachers.
Research also shows that Black girls experience discrimination based on their hair texture and styles as early as five years old. Back women are 1.5 times more likely to have reported having been sent home or know of a Black woman being sent home from the workplace because of her hair.
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) first introduced the federal bill in 2019, and vowed to keep reintroducing the measure after several failed votes.
“Here we are today standing on behalf of those individuals — whether my colleagues on the other side recognize that or not — who are discriminated against as children in school, as adults who are trying to get jobs, as individuals who are trying to get housing, as individuals who simply want access to public accommodations and to be beneficiaries of federally funded programs,” said Watson Coleman prior to the House vote.
“And why are they denied these opportunities?” she continued. “Because there are folks in this society who get to make those decisions, who think because your hair is kinky, it is braided, it is in knots, or it is not straight and blonde and light brown, that you somehow are not worthy of access to those issues. Well, that’s discrimination.”
The bill must now make it through a Senate vote before it can become law.
