Trial Date Set For Texas Student Suspended Since August For Wearing Locs

Darryl George is finally getting his date in court — for wearing locs.

The Barbers Hill High School student has faced in-school suspension or been relegated to a disciplinary school since August 2023 for his lengthy locs. According to the Texas-based, the 18-year-old junior’s locs violate a district dress code that limits hair length for boys. The district has said other students with locs comply with the length policy.

[SEE ALSO: Texas Latest State To Sign CROWN Act Into Law]

“I love my hair, it is sacred and it is my strength,” wrote George ahead of the hearing to set his trial date. “All I want to do is go to school and be a model student. I am being harassed by school officials and treated like a dog.”

This is not the first time students in the Houston-area district have made national headlines for getting suspended after refusing to cut their locks. In 2020, the district told senior De’Andre Arnold, who had worn his locs for years, that he could not walk at his graduation unless he cut them. His cousin, sophomore Kaden Bradford, was also put on at-home suspension.

[SEE ALSO: A Second Black Teen With Locs Was Also Suspended By Texas School]

Those two cases inspired Texas Rep. Rhetta Andrew Bowers to help enact legislation making race-based hair discrimination — including braids, locs, and twists — in school and the workplace illegal. The CROWN Act, a legal movement to make discrimination against people of color for their hair a human rights issue, went into effect Sept. 1, 2023.

The district “is punishing Darryl George for one reason: his choice to wear his hair in a protective style which harms no one and causes no distraction in the classroom,” said Rep. Bowers during the hearing.

Similarly, the district is standing behind its decision. This time, however, the Texas Superintendent took out a full-page ad defending their stance, claiming that “being American requires conformity.”

The statement is the impetus for the seven-year movement behind the CROWN Act to help people of color, particularly Black men and women, to reclaim and celebrate the humanity of their natural, God-given tresses.

George’s family intends to fight their battle with the new state law via federal civil rights lawsuit and a formal complaint with the Texas Education Agency, reports the Associate Press.

The trial is set for February 22 in Anahauac, Texas.