A high school superintendent in Texas incited outrage after he demanded a Black male student either cut his dreadlocks or wear a dress and start calling himself a female.
According to the news station KETK in Tatum, Texas, grandmother Randi Woodley was told at a Meet the Teacher event in August that she needed to report to the principal’s office about her grandson.
“I went to the principal’s office, where she explained to me that my grandson’s hair was too long,” Woodley said. During that meeting, Woodley said the Tatum Independent School District’s superintendent gave her three options.
“He told me that I could either cut it, braid it and pin it up or put my grandson in a dress and send him to school and, when prompted, my grandson must say he’s a girl,” she said.
Another parent, Kambry Cox, told KETK her son told her he thinks there is something wrong with his hair.
“With my son’s dreadlocks, sometimes they do fall in front of his face, so I felt it would be easier to put his hair up, but then that’s a problem,” Cox said.
According to the news station, the dress code states that “no ponytails, ducktails, rat-tails, male buns, or puffballs are allowed on male students,” and that male students’ hair cannot “extend past the top of a t-shirt collar.”
Angry parents packed the local school auditorium to decry the superintendent’s handling of the Black male student’s hair. There was also a problem with how the school district interpreted the rules that inordinately impacted students of color in a negative way.
The school district declined KETK’s request for comment on the controversial matter.
