Patrick and Melissa Hayden’s 14-year-old son was kicked off his junior high school basketball team this fall after he refused to cut his hair to comply with team rules which require players’ hair to be cut above their eyebrows, collars and ears. Of course, these rules only apply to male athletes, female athletes at Greensburg Junior High School are allowed to wear long hair. That’s why Patrick and Melissa have decided to take the school to court and fight for their son’s right to have long hair.
“What they’re trying to do here is teach (their son) a life lesson, which simply is that you fight for what’s right,” Ron Frazier, the Haydens’ attorney told Indystar.com. “This is classic David versus Goliath, and they want their son to understand that.”
The school doesn’t believe that they’re violating the child’s rights, particularly because participating in sports teams is considered a privilege, not a right. Unfortunately for the Hayden’s, recent court ruling seem to support that point of view. The courts are generally split over whether kids have a right to wear whatever hair style they choose at school, but even those that uphold a student’s right to control their own hair style tend to give schools more leeway with extracurricular activities.
In 2003, a federal court in Missouri dismissed a similar case in which a basketball player sued a school district because he wasn’t allowed to wear cornrows in his hair. The court disapproved of the grooming policy, calling it “an asinine, stupid rule,” but decided that participation in extracurricular activities is a privilege, not a right, and that the policy didn’t violate the player’s constitutional rights.
