Girl's suspension for pink hair overturned
Mar. 20, 2012 04:35 PM
Mike Chalmers, (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal
NEWARK, Del. -- School officials who saw red when faced with a pink-haired honors student reversed themselves Tuesday and allowed the girl to return to class -- without changing her hair color.
Sixth-grader Brianna Moore, 12, said she was glad the incident was behind her but doesn't regret her stance.
"I need to stand up for myself when it's right," she said after getting off the bus Tuesday.
Brianna's parents let her dye her hair last week as a reward for good grades. But when she showed up at Shue-Medill Middle School, officials told her and her parents the hair color was so disruptive that Brianna couldn't come back until her hair was returned to its natural color.
Her father, Kevin Moore, said he's glad the district resolved the issue quickly.
"It's a crazy thing to get so uptight about," he said.
The incident has prompted a second look at the school's rule, which is unique among the Christina School District's four middle schools, district spokeswoman Wendy Lapham said.
"It's likely we'll be reviewing those policies," Lapham said.
Brianna returned to school after negotiations between the district's lawyer and the ACLU of Delaware, which had begun working on the Moore family's behalf after a story published Tuesday.
"She is not going to be suspended tomorrow, next week, next month, etc. for the pink hair," the district's lawyer, James H. McMackin III, wrote in an email to ACLU lawyer Richard Morse. "District policy does not apply with regard to the hairstyle at issue."
Last year, when Brianna was a fifth-grader at Marshall Elementary School, Kevin and Wendy Moore let their daughter dye her hair pink when she improved her grades. No school official objected then, and Brianna went to class for months with pink hair.
But when Brianna went to middle school Thursday morning, she was turned away because a school official told her father that her hair violated school policy.
Kevin Moore said the school gave the family three options: bleach out the dye job, wait several weeks for it to fade while Brianna sits in in-school suspension or take her to another school in the Christina district.
The school's policy, which is posted on its website and was sent home to parents at the beginning of the school year, bans "excessive hair colors, red, blue, green etc." It allows only "natural color, brown, blond, black, natural red/auburn."
Legal experts had said the school was on shaky ground, and the matter was resolved by lunchtime. Kevin Moore drove Brianna back to classes in the afternoon.
Kathleen MacRae, executive director of the ACLU of Delaware, said too many schools suspend or expel students over minor rule violations that aren't related to disruptive behavior.
"Every hour a child spends out of school affects their education," MacRae said. "I wish the schools would think twice before they do that."