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The court ruling described in the link below interprets the Unruh Act, as it is to be applied to religious schools. The Unruh Act is the law that prohibits discrimination in California. The court case is about lesbians, but the same law prohibits discrimination against longhairs, so it would be highly likely to be applied the same.
The ruling exempts religious schools, unlike public schools, from the Unruh Act. Presumably from reading the court's opinion, a private school would likely be subject to the act if the school were seen more as a business enterprise than as an organization organized to instill values. However, the court did not address the issue of private schools that are not religious.
In summary, religious schools are not subject to the Unruh Act, so they can probably discriminate against longhairs. Public schools are subject to the act and cannot. Private schools that are not religious are probably subject to the act and cannot discriminate, but this has not been specifically litigated so is not completely clear.
California Unruh Act court ruling
The case is "In Re Cox", a California Supreme Court case decided October 1, 1970. The Northgate Shopping Center in the Marin County town of San Rafael attempted to toss a male customer out because he had long hair on May 21, 1968, and the court interpreted the Unruh Act to include longhairs. Note the dates: This has been the law in California for almost forty years.
The Unruh Act does not cover those in the relationship of employee to an employer. There is a different law for that relationship, and it has not to date been interpreted to cover longhairs. However, except in that instance, the Unruh Act is California's general civil rights act, and it applies to any relationship where civil rights acts apply. The recent case was a holding that civil rights laws in general do not apply to religious schools. A prior case held that civil rights laws do not apply to social groups that do not have a strong business purpose. The organization in question in that case was the Boy Scouts.
At some level, the right to associate with others trumps civil rights laws. No one would argue you can't discriminate on the basis of race in picking your spouse, for example. This need extends beyond the family, of course. If you want to form a group of Catholics to celebrate Catholicism, for example, you can discriminate against non-Catholics. And if you want to form a group of longhaired men, you can discriminate against non-longhairs. MLHH benefits from this exception that social groups have, by the way, and it protects us if we want to limit participation in some ways to longhairs. So longhairs can benefit as well as be harmed by decisions by members of groups to limit participation to others like themselves. What the court in the recent decision was deciding was precisely this issue - whether a religious school is more like a public business or like a private group.
Bill
I think it may have been Ayn Rand who said something along the line of, "a lot of rights issues in society hinge on what we consider a unit".
In this case we can see that simply saying, "organizations can't discriminate" isn't so clearly "right" as it may seem.
I didn't want to move to Utah; but at the same time I have no desire to change Utah. I think it's just fine that people who want to go someplace where the values of the Mormon church dominate, can go someplace like that. On the other hand, they didn't feel quite the same way about California, did they?
Should we try to apply California values uniformly across the USA? Mormon values? I think neither. Once you reach adulthood, you can choose to move wherever you want. It might take a lot of hard work and sacrifice, but you can do it. If we had only one set of values nationwide, you'd take away that choice.
Same deal with countries too... this is why I've never been a big fan of globalism. If you have only one system, where's your place of refuge?
California is as big (both geographicly and economicly) as some countries, and it's got blue and red parts too, which is interesting... ...ok, just rambling now
Well that just blows, Bill. Here I was thinking California was a beacon for human liberty.
As for longhaired groups, I personally would include anyone supporting us, longhair or not, and excluding only hair nazis. In my little war against them on Myspace, I have several short haired guys listed as friends, most of these are friends irl. My personal goal is to live long enough to see longhair viewed as acceptable. For someone like Terry to interview for a job and not worry about being asked to cut it.
I am curious if there are any activist groups in California (or anywhere) supporting longhaired mens rights? Wouldn't it be nice to see a bill passed against this particular discrimination as a separate entity. I'm surprised it hasn't been done yet.
When it comes to things concerning laws and how they come to be, I'm a complete idiot. You'll have to excuse me as I went to school in Alabama, lol.
Paul
For some groups having those without the defining characteristic in them works, and for some groups it does not. The main concern to be answered is, "Will the values of the organization be preserved if outsiders are allowed in?" My experience with organizing and managing several longhair groups has been that enough non-longhairs "just don't get it" and that there are so many more of them than there are of us, that to keep longhair groups meeting the needs of longhairs, they need to be run by longhairs. By "just don't get it", I mean they don't understand the depth of feeling that many longhairs feel about having their hair.
If you look at the non-longhairs who have hung out here at MLHH, a few have been supportive but far more have had participation that has been dysfunctional and sometimes disruptive. Almost none of the moderators' time is spent with posts by men known to be longhairs. Longhaired men seem to be a hot-button issue for some people and we draw them like flies are drawn to honey. We don't know why that is, but perhaps it is because they were not allowed to have long hair, never dealt with their personal issue, and instead now misdirect their self-disgust at other longhairs, or perhaps they feel threatened by the power issues that often arise around having long hair. In any event, non-longhairs have been enough of a problem that our groups are probably best off to do as MLHH has done - welcome those who are supportive with open arms but keep decision-making among those who are longhairs.
Small as it is, I'd say you are looking at the largest one in the world right now. MLHH's focus is support in general, not just civil rights though. To my knowledge, no general rights group such as the ACLU or Amnesty International has included us among their concerns.
In another post to this thread a while ago, I discussed this, and in one short sentence to sum that discussion up: It probably won't happen until we elect some longhairs. So if you want this, vote for longhairs!
Well, you are interested in organizing from a civil rights standpoint, and that is great! Good luck to you!
Bill
Have any longhairs as a group, ever try getting legal representation to fight discrimination? I was thinking that celebrated lawyer, Ron Kuby, might be one to look into. He sports a ponytail, and has taken on cases that many lawyers would run from. It seems that the longhair movement, needs a longhair lawyer to represent them. I wonder if Ron Kuby is even aware of their plight, and might represent them. All it takes is an email to quiz him, and you just never know wether this is something he would be willing to take on, or not.
Rony Kuby Website
Yeah, that's the thing about hair nazis that I don't get. When I started posting here I thought I might get an answer to that. Since no one here knows either, I now see this particular discrimination as even more bizarre than before. I think they are taught this form of hate just as some are taught to be racist or bigots.
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That is sound judgment. It would certainly be foolish to chance it cause like you said, they just don't get it. However I feel that there are many "closet longhairs" out there in jobs and family related situations who just aren't allowed to grow it. Sometimes they might begin to hate it out of jealousy but if anyone ever won a major lawsuit against this discrimination I bet the floodgates would bust open. (Maybe that's a bit too optimistic.) Truly, the only shorthairs that worry me are the hair nazis as they often campaign to get others to buy their twisted vision. Most shorthairs strike me as neutral (but like you said, we should keep decision-making).
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It's a good start. It's my opinion that everyone here should strive to spread the world and support their longhaired brothers whenever the need arises. Sometimes this does mean sticking your neck out. Pony up my friends!
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I've seen your site Bill and it's a golden thing, I know that I am a "born longhair" having desired to grow it as far back as I can remember (long before I knew about hippies). Every longhair should read it, hell, shorthairs should read it too. It's very enlightening and informative.
Thanks Bill,
Paul
That last bit could be said about civil rights statutes in general, though, when you think about it. [grin]
Do you have access to a law library or the Internet equivalent of one? I'd have to hoof it downtown to get such access, and I've not been motivated to spend the time. Google searches turn up more recent instances where the Cox case is still being cited, and I've seen no cases to refute its premises, so I've presumed it is still operative to a major degree. What I have not seen is the commentary you've seen.
The logic used by the California Supreme Court in extending the Unruh Act to cover longhairs is similar to that used by that court to overturn Proposition 22 this past spring, said logic being to look at the overall intent of civil rights provisions rather than to steadfastly adhere to a precise list of protected characteristics as federal courts and courts in many other states have tended to do. That this logic is alive and well kicking around Civic Center Plaza bodes well for Cox to not be abandoned.
The ultimate test of that course of logic will be the upcoming Proposition 8 ruling. However it goes, it should be interesting!
One important thing to note is the timing of Cox. It occurred one year before Stonewall, and a number of years before the Unruh Act was extended to cover sexual orientation. 1968 was also just one year after the Summer of Love, when the Marin County establishment was terrified of hippies running wild just south of the Golden Gate Bridge, and that crowd was a very activist crowd, confronting the war, the draft, and yes, civil rights inequities. Both sides were ready to do battle on the long hair issue, but there has been much less activity on the issue since. By the mid-1970s, longhairs were more accepted and it was usually possible for one to just navigate around discrimination by going elsewhere. As a result, we've really seen very little progress in longhair civil rights since, while we've seen tolerance of sexual orientation discrimination in that time go from ubiquitous to zilch. One could thus say progress with longhair discrimination has progressed at a snail's pace compared to what it could have been.
Despite less antipathy than that seen in the 1960s, we've had serious discrimination situations and civil rights protections are needed. Most tragic have been the case of children in schools, who don't have the mobility that adults have to choose employers, and the case of people working for an employer with substantial pension or similar vested rights, where the employer suddenly decides to change the rules.
The logic being applied now in California is that aspects of one's identity that are often deeply held and are often the subject of discrimination should be protected, this supplanting the oft cited prior logic that we only protect "things that cannot be changed". Whether sexual orientation can be changed is disputed, but long hair can be cut off, and of course, RELIGION CAN BE CHANGED. It was the latter reality coupled with a deep desire to protect religion that has underlain the shift to the more recent approach that we protect deep aspects of one's identity.
The State of California has recognized long hair as such but we have a long way to go before longhairs everywhere can go about their lives without a dark cloud of discrimination hanging over their heads. Little progress has been seen since the 1970s for longhairs, and I doubt anyone in this forum would argue that it is time some movement be had to finish the job.
Bill
Besides the Unruh Act in California, there's also the DC Human Rights Act that enumerates "hair style" as a protected class.
It probably arose to combat discrimination against African Americans for wearing their hair in corn rows, as they are the majority of the population of DC and that was a particular issue at one time. In other places in the US it could be dealt with by laws covering racial discrimination, but it's a bit different where there's a black majority. They had to do something to protect the style itself, so they wound up protecting "hair style" per se. Yes, it's two words for some reason, not "hairstyle".
I can't see how anyone could interpret the DC law to allow anti- long hair discrimination. OTOH, the town is full of lawyers who will argue any point of view if there's money in it. I should know, I work for a DC law firm.
Great to know that! Have there been any cases involving it, or have school administrators, and employers, including the city police department, just accepted it?
I recall reading that Champaign, Illinois, a college town, passed such an ordinance and that freaked out the state legislature enough that they passed a state law to override it. This would be another case of a majority or near majority being victimized with discrimination, since college students there are almost as common as black men in D.C. are.
Well, you know and I know that in law school they teach you that judges decide cases based on the constitution, on legislation, and on prior court decisions, but that one realizes after reading thousands of cases that the reality is that judges decide cases how they want, justifying their decision by bending the constitution, legislation, and prior court decisions to the greatest extent they can get away with.
What we need are more longhair politicians and judges. One of us in the state house is worth millions on the voting rolls. When a few women got into the California legislature, they ran through a bill that prohibits employers from discriminating against women that wear pants! Women can change their clothes at five o'clock, but longhaired men cannot change their hair, yet in employment relationships in California, discrimination against longhaired men is still legal.
Even having members of a legislator's own family suffering discrimination does not sink into a thick politician's skull. Some of the most virulent homophobes among politicians have gay children.
We have not had a woman president, and just last week we finally got a black president, but we had a longhair president two hundred years ago. Thomas Jefferson had long hair and was known to keep it in a ponytail. Except in the 1960s and 1970s, feelings on longhair discrimination have not raged enough to bring it to the forefront and move it towards resolution, and when we think about it, we've seen centuries of stagnation on this issue, which has been with us since Roman times.
Vote early, vote often, and vote for longhairs!
Bill
I don't really know for sure, as I haven't done any legal research on it. However, I don't see any long-haired male police, firemen, etc. in DC, whereas I heard that they have long haired male police in NY City, for example (who, however, have to wear a bun). I think that employers of men that wear uniforms have somehow got around the law in DC, but I think it still holds up for everyone else, but I would have to check. I think there is a particular precedent re uniforms and long hair, but I don't recall it.
Thankfully, DC isn't part of a state. Congress have powers to interfere with DC legislation, but I don't think this has ever been on their radar.
True, as the federal equal rights legislation clearly should prevent long hair discrimination, but has been completely eviscerated by judges' decisions.
I can't see another long haired president being elected any time soon. The primaries screen out the best candidates, and nobody with long hair even gets as far as being in the primaries.
Alun
Hey Bill, thanks for posting this...not surprising...wherever you find organized religion...discrimination in all forms flagrantly exists. Christian values indeed! Religious institutions ALWAYS get a free pass to do whatever they want...so it goes...
No disrespect intended to christians out there...I know there are many god believers out there who do not share these "values".
Here's our chance Paul KMF!
Hope all is well in your world Bill.
Cheers,
Max