new thread
I read an article in the paper this morning where a guy that is working to get his law degree in Licoln, Nebraska, needed to basically intern with a law firm to get some on-the-job training and to fulfill course requirements. The head of the law firm would not let this guy participate in proceedings in the court room because the student had shoulder length hair. The student thought about filing a discrimination suit against the head of the firm, but backed out due to the guys power and position. If this isn't discrimination in the fullest I don't know what is. They certainly would not decline to let a girl with a buzz cut attend these proceedings. The guy needs this to attain his degree and just because he has shoulder length hair this is denied to him by some macho pig who is probably jealous and/or afraid that guys with long hair will become mainstream and that is against his conservative beliefs. Incedently, the guy was once in the armed forces and did not want to cut his hair once he was out. One good side to this is that the student still declined to cut is hair even though he was not allowed to receive the necessary on-the-job training to get his degree.
Here in New Jersey there are a lot of male lawyers with long hair. Mostly civil libertarians and personal injury lawyers; not too many tax lawyers that I know of. These guys are generally solo practitioners, though, not associates in the traditional, conservative, stuffy law firm.
There was a case here in N.J. just a year or so ago where the state Supreme Court held that the defendant Casino had every right to terminate a male employee who had his hair in a ponytail, DESPITE THE FACT that he had the ponytail when they first hired him but later changed their policy to prohibit long hair on male employees. If you've ever seen any of the SHORT-HAIRED SCUZBAGS that work in Casinos, you'd really wonder if the Supreme Court had taken leave of its senses. Guess that means that Thomas Jefferson would never be permitted to work at that Casino.
I'm lucky to be with a company that "celebrates diversity" and does not punish people for their appearance as long as they are neat, clean and businesslike. My boss, through his silence, doesn't care for my hair, but hanging in his office is a picture of him from 1975 with long hair.
Hang in their, guys. Every day we become less the exception and more the rule.