TheAgitator.com
And the Sign Says, “Long Haired Hippie People, Need Not Apply”
Saturday, January 12th, 2008A Texas high school is trying to prevent a student from graduating because he won’t cut his hair.
A few days before Christmas break at Kerens High School, about 15 miles east of Corsicana in a tiny town known as the birthplace of Big Tex, the straight-A student and at least four other students were called into the principal’s office.Cut your hair by the time you return to school in January or be sent to alternative school, be removed from all extracurricular activities and risk not graduating, Matthew said the principal and assistant principal told him.
The high school is behaving poorly, but just as I was starting to feel some sympathy for the family…
Matthew’s mom, Linda Lopez, doesn’t buy the superintendent’s reasoning that students didn’t comply. She believes that the school board is against males having long hair, which she says is utterly foolish.”It’s not the ’60s anymore. They aren’t hippies, and they aren’t radical anti-war tree huggers,” she said.
Because if they were, of course, preventing them from graduating would be just hunky dory.
Your website is an enjoyable daily read for me, but I tend to disagree with your last point. The mom’s comments don’t automatically mean that she would have personally endorsed tossing hippies out of school in the 60’s, or that she believes it was a fine idea back then.
One can also infer that she simply means it happened more often in the 60’s and was generally accepted by society - and that in modern society, her son’s appearance is no longer a behavioral indicator that it perhaps once was.
But in the end, I fail to see how she or her son have much ground to stand on; the school’s policy is quite clear. He’s chosen to ignore it for awhile, and is now merely being told that he can no longer do whatever he likes with impunity.
If your workplace demands a collared shirt with a tie, you are well within your rights to try to wear a t-shirt and shorts every day. However, your workplace will also be within their rights to point you towards the dress code, and dismiss you if you choose to continue ignore their policy.
Now, Radley, we don’t know that that is what she meant. She may have used that as an example of long-haired, uh, miscreants that typically come to mind when one thinks of such things. Which I frequently do.
thorn,
The difference is that your employer pays you, and public schools are paid by the taxpayers, which includes the students’ families. The student aren’t getting paid by the school, but the students and their families are the customers. Now, if a student is doing something that makes it difficult for the other “customers” to learn, then it’s fine to discipline or remove them. But I find it hard to believe that long hair on a guy is so distracting that it’s an impediment to learning. In fact the only reason it would be distracting is because there’s a rule against it.
A public school is an arm of the government; there is no choice as to whether or not the student’s family has to pay for their “services”, so the rules should be as respectful of individual rights as possible.
If it were a private school, then that’s a whole different story. They could require hair to be dyed purple or shave it off for all I care, because the students and their families could leave and take their money with them.
Bill,
I’ll grant that place of employment is more of a choice that that of the public school (assuming only one in the district, for sake of discussion). However, the fact remains it’s a school policy. I’m sure they have a similar policy requiring all male students to wear a shirt and not show up bare-chested.
The policy (which BTW, I don’t agree with) was created either by the school, or the school board - both extensions of publicly-elected offices. The proper recourse is to have the policy changed, not to intentionally violate it and then whine when you get your hand slapped.
I’m required by the city/state to pay for public schools. I don’t like it whatsoever, but my solution is not to ignore the rule requiring that i do so.
thorn
thorn,
I agree with you that the right thing to do is to try to change the rule, and we both disagree with it. But I would expand upon that in three directions.
First, it could be argued that the administration and school board should not have the authority to create such a rule in the first place, which makes the rule invalid. That’s why we have constitutional limitations on government–to limit majority rule, or rule by representatives.
Second, there is a civil disobedience aspect to this. A few years ago the school district in which we lived had a rather silly dress code. I told my kids that they were free to disobey it–within the rules that our family has for what is appropriate–but that they had to understand that they might well have to face the consequences of breaking the rule. It may be a legitimate aspect of civil disobedience today to dispute the punishment because one component of civil disobedience that disobeying the rule makes it more difficult to enforce.
Lastly, even if the dress (or coif) code were legitimate, the penalty seems disproportionate. I agree that shoplifting is wrong. I disagree that the perpetrator’s hand should be cut off at the wrist.
Another story that makes me feel so lucky to be able to homeschool my son.
It’s “long haired freaky people,” not “long haired hippie people.”
Long hair, AND pro-war? I smell mullet.
He could start a band and name it Lynyrd Skynyrd after his intolerant long-hair-hating gym teacher … oh wait, that was done already. How did it turn out for those guys? Yeah, never mind.
Dress Codes? I remember dress codes.
Back when I was in high school a lot of the schools had dress codes. All the schools in my school district had dress codes.
For males, hair couldn’t touch the ears or collar. Girls had to wear dresses- no pants- except on “Pants Day” which happened 3 or 4 times a year.
Eventually, some “short hair wigs” showed up. They were basically a wig that looked [roughly] like normal short hair for a guy. You could put one on and stuff your long hair under it. The school officials went along with that, despite the wigs looking rather silly.
The other way around the dress code was to simply go to another school that allowed long hair. I finally went that route by weaseling my way into my school district’s continuation school- the only school in the district without a dress code.
Other guys found themselves a way to go to schools outside of the district.
Hard to believe they still have dress codes anywhere nowadays, although I’m more tolerant of them now than I was when they applied to me.
Does anyone know if wearing the low pants that show the butt is acceptable in this school?
Anyone with long hair should be restricted in their activities and have mandatory study hall. We all know the first step in a life of crime is long hair.
As an employer, if am individual applied for a job and appeared unsavory to those I serve as customers, they would NOT get a job!
Such woud apply to appearance and even language skills as well.
HS’s TODAY are expected to turn out tomorrows Wally World executives. Being clean cut is a part of that.
Use college for a total fuck off session if you desire, once finished WW will still hire you, even with the earring. But even there, men should appear to be men, (sans customers), and women to be women. Hair length is one measure for such.
“He could start a band and name it Lynyrd Skynyrd after his intolerant long-hair-hating gym teacher … oh wait, that was done already.”
And Leon Trotsky supposedly borrowed his name from the head jailer of the prison where he’d served his sentence, for similar reasons. It’s a pretty good trick.
Hey pris, your a criminal. Your asking if showing your butt is acceptable at school?
What.. do you want to take it in tha ass or something?
i mean damn.
haha, go *uck a billy goat.
Peace.