A Black student was suspended for his hairstyle. The school says it wasn’t discrimination

By CHEYANNE MUMPHREY and JUAN LOZANO (Associated Press)

MONT BELVIEU, Texas (AP) — A Black high school student in Texas has been punished with an in-school suspension over his hairstyle for over two weeks. The family has argued he is not violating the dress code, but when he arrived Monday wearing his hair still in twisted dreadlocks tied on top of his head, he was suspended again, his mother said.

Darryl George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, was initially suspended the same week his state outlawed racial discrimination based on hairstyles. School officials said his dreadlocks fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes and violated the district’s dress code.

George, 17, has been suspended since Aug. 31 at the Houston-area school. He was in tears when he was suspended Monday despite the family’s appeals, his mother Darresha George said.

“He has to sit on a stool for eight hours in a cubicle,” she ...