new thread
It's stories I read like this that make me un-proud to be American.
What rights will be taken away next?
WHITEFISH, Mont. –– A student with dreadlocks can't come back to class until she gets rid of her "outlandish" hairstyle, Whitefish High School officials say.
"It's not really my hair," said 15-year-old Kisteesha Lanegan, who hasn't been to school since the first day of class. "They're trying to mold me into a person that I'm not. My hair is totally irrelevant to education at the school."
Superintendent Jerry House said Lanegan was told she would not be able to attend classes with dreadlocks. When she showed up on the first day of school with the hairstyle, officials sent her home.
"We're not here as a fashion store or fashion occasion," he said. "If you want to dress in an outlandish way in your own time, that's your business. That's not our business."
Lanegan said the ban makes her as good as expelled.
At the end of last school year, school officials told Lanegan to get rid of the dreadlocks over the summer break. House said that gave her enough time to comply with a new policy banning dreadlocks and mohawks.
© 2002 The Associated Press
In my town, this girl gets off the bus wearing Flamingo-Pink hair...
Seems the school allows almost evrything except bare breasts.
...this country is certainly UNeven...
Things like this really pi$$ me off.
I hope the parents contact the ACLU and sue the school and superintendent. I know I would.
The land of the free is a joke. We've never been that in a true sense, and we never will be.
If she's black, I'd play the race card too. Also, what defines "outlandish"?
Time to sue the pants off those people!
I agree that this is bullshit. However, I (being a true conservative), would never allow this to go on in MY school. I'm sure the school here also requires men/boys to have short hair. This type of conformist attitude is the equivalent of socialism in my eyes.
They should sue, as well as all the young men whom are required to cut their hair. I haven't checked into this, but I'd bet the "short-hair" rule applies to all enrolled males.
Take care.
Don't say you're un-proud to be an American. This is not an America thing, this is an asshole thing. And it doesn't matter HOW free your country is, it will never be free of assholes.
At least we are free to oppose the assholes. Food for thought.
The Rev
This is more than an American thing. This is a universal oppression thing that the leaders of developed civilizations have utilized since Sampson had his locks cut. Every where I turn, there are codes of grooming for jobs and school. We have lost our sense of what it means to be human. Hair is natural. If you want to cut it fine, but there is no justifiable reason to have your hair cut. The forced cutting and grooming of hair is done to equalize the group- make noone feel as if they have any special attributes, ex. the military, prisons, jobs. (Why do fifty ans sixty year old politicians shave?) We should not stand buy as leaders throw us deeper into Orwellian hell where our very flesh is controlled by those in power. Furthermore forced grooming creates rebels, it does not quiet them. I know, I have stopped cutting and combing my nature since I graduated high school and have gotten a B.A. in Japansese Studies, teach English in Japan, and will go for my masters soon- all with shoulder length dreds and a full beard- I am a lifetime rebel against quelling the nature that grows from me.
I go to this school. I attend Whitefish High School. I can't beleive this made the news, considering there is a much more horrifying policy at this school: the new attendance policy.