Constitutional Law

Ind. family tries to clip basketball team's haircut policy

By By The Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS ? The parents of a former junior high school basketball player have filed a federal lawsuit in Indianapolis that argues a team haircut policy violated their son's right to wear his hair the way he wants.

Patrick and Melissa Hayden said in the lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court that their son was kicked off the Greensburg Junior High team after he refused to cut his hair to comply with team rules, which require that players' hair be above their eyebrows, collars and ears. The Indianapolis Star reported that the Haydens want the court to rule that the policy is unconstitutional, force the school district to stop enforcing the policy and award damages to the family.

"What they're trying to do here is teach (their son) a life lesson, which simply is that you fight for what's right," the Haydens' attorney, Ron Frazier, told the newspaper. "This is classic David versus Goliath, and they want their son to understand that."

School district officials say the policy doesn't violate the boy's rights, partly because extracurricular activities are considered a privilege, not a right. Tuck Hopkins, an attorney who represents Greensburg Community Schools, said the boy wasn't denied an education or kicked out of school.

"It's two different standards," he said. "There is no right to engage in extracurricular activities."

Greensburg Junior High's athletic code bans hairstyles that "create problems of health and sanitation, obstruct vision, or call undue attention to the athlete." It also allows coaches to set more specific guidelines, which is what head varsity coach Stacy Meyer did.

The lawsuit states that Meyer wanted both the high school and junior high teams to have a "clean-cut" image and that the hairstyle rules created a sense of uniformity for the teams.

Courts have been split in rulings about school grooming policies, says David Hudson, a First Amendment scholar at the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. Some rulings back a student's right to wear their hair as they like at school, but generally "schools are given more leeway with extracurricular activities."

A federal court in Missouri dismissed a case in 2003 in which a basketball player sued a school district because coaches wouldn't let him wear cornrows in his hair. The court called it "an asinine, stupid rule" but decided that participation in extracurricular activities is not a right and that the policy didn't violate the player's constitutional rights.

Other Indianapolis-area basketball teams have similar haircut guidelines but coaches say they haven't had many problems with enforcement. Franklin Central High School head boys basketball coach Mark James requires his players to keep their hair above their collars and out of their eyes. He said he wouldn't kick players off the team for violating the policy, but said he might not play them as much because they would be ignoring team rules.

Coaches at Ben Davis High School generally allow students to play as long as their hair is clean and doesn't jeopardize anyone's safety, said athletic director Kevin Britt.

"We forgo the clean-cut look to complete our main mission, which is to have kids involved in extracurricular activities," Britt told The Star.

Full post as published by First Amendment Center on January 03, 2011 (boomark / email).