HOUSTON (AP) — A Black high school student in Texas who was punished for nearly all of his junior year over his hairstyle has left his school district rather than spend another year of in-school suspension, according to his attorney.
But Darryl George, 18, would like to return to his Houston-area high school in the Barbers Hill school district for his senior year and has asked a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order that would prevent district officials from further punishing him for not cutting his hair. It would allow him to return to school while a federal lawsuit he filed proceeds.
George’s request comes after U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown in August dismissed most of the claims the student and his mother had filed in the federal lawsuit alleging school district officials committed racial and gender discrimination when they punished him.
The judge only let the gender discrimination claim stand and questioned whether the school district’s hair length rule causes more harm than good.