June 20 – Ohio public school students could soon be legally protected from discrimination based on their hairstyle if the Senate passes the House’s bipartisan bill, which passed the House on a 83-8 vote earlier this month accepted.
The overwhelming passage of the bill in the House of Representatives follows a years-long effort to get this legislation passed by one of the chambers of the Ohio General Assembly. Supporters of House Bill 178 on both sides of the aisle see it as a long-awaited first step toward critical public policy.
“Hairstyles are an extension of your race and ethnicity. Allowing schools to discriminate against students who proudly represent their race or ethnicity is nothing short of bias,” said Rep. Josh Williams, R-Sylvania.
Williams explained that current state anti-discrimination laws are not sufficient due to federal court rulings that have determined that hair textures and styles are not “immutable” aspects of race and therefore can be regulated in certain circumstances.
“This simply means that hair texture must be protected, and that no one should be forced to go to school and change his or her hairstyle if he or she attends a public school,” he said.
Rep. Juanita BrentCleveland, D-Cleveland, who has run the bill for the past six years, said children as young as five have faced hair discrimination because their hair was in an afro.
“That’s what’s happening here in Ohio and it makes us wonder why people are leaving our state,” Brent said.
No opponents spoke against the bill in the House of Representatives, but eight Republicans did vote against it, three of whom are bald. The only local Republicans who voted against the bill (Greene County Rep. Bill Dean, R-Xenia, and Butler County Rep. Rodney Creech, R-West Alexandria) each sport full heads of hair.
Rep. Tom Young, R-Washington Twp., considered himself “one of the bald guys who voted for this bill.”
“No one should be discriminated against because of a physical characteristic, such as hairstyle, or in my case, the lack thereof,” Young said.
The bill, known as the CROWN Act, or the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act, started out as a much more comprehensive protection.
What was once intended as a general protection for all, especially for students and staff of both public and private educational institutions, was reduced to a protection intended only for public school students, from kindergarten to the last year of high school .
Rep. Jamie CallenderR-Concord, who co-sponsored the bill with Brent, admitted that the version passed by the House of Representatives was not exactly what he and Brent had in mind.
“While my joint sponsor and I would very much like it to be more comprehensive at this point, the reality of passing a bill sometimes requires us to compromise on what we would really like to see,” Callender said, before hinting that a more extensive bill might be introduced next year.
During the committee process, the only opponent to testify against the bill was the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, which questioned the proposal when it was significantly expanded.
The House expressed concern that a comprehensive bill would increase the legal liability of employers, limit the employment protections Ohio employers enjoy at their discretion, and limit an employer’s ability to “establish their own workplace policies that seek to and keep workers healthy” — a set of concerns that could resonate if the bill’s proponents were to provide further protections in the near future.
Now that the bill has been passed, it will go to the Senate for further consideration.
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Avery Kreemer can be reached at 614-981-1422, at X, via email, or you can send him a comment/tip via the survey below.
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