Fighting race-based hair discrimination – CROWN Act laws
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its state and local antidiscrimination law counterparts prohibit employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, and sex. Many state and local laws go beyond Title VII requirements by covering smaller employers and protecting additional characteristics such as reproductive health decision-making, marital status, gender identity and expression, veteran or military status, and domestic or sexual violence victim status.
Another characteristic that many states now protect is hairstyles that are associated with a particular race. As of December 2022, 19 states have laws prohibiting race-based hairstyle discrimination, often referred to as CROWN Act laws.
The Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act, or CROWN Act, is part of a national coalition aimed at securing protections for race-based hairstyles in workplaces and public schools. The Act extends current antidiscrimination laws to protect hair texture and protective styles, such as braids, locks, twists, and knots. Under the laws, an employer can’t discriminate against individuals because they have a natural hair texture or choose to wear their hair in braids or dreadlocks.
The CROWN Act grew out of a research study that revealed black women are 80 percent more likely to be sent home from work because of their hairstyle and 1.5 times more likely than white women to report they had to change their hairstyle to fit in at the workplace.
As often happens when it comes to legislative trends, California was the first state to enact a CROWN Act law prohibiting employment discrimination based on protected hairstyles. The law expanded the definition of “race” to include traits historically associated with race, like hair texture and protective hairstyles like braids, locks, and twists. Some states have since enacted laws that include hair type and length as well as hair wraps and head coverings (including wigs) in their definitions.
Some people think the CROWN Act laws are unnecessary because race and national origin are already protected under Title VII. But some courts have found that discrimination because of hairstyle—even styles primarily associated with a certain race—isn’t protected under Title VII. For example, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals (covering employers in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia) upheld an employer’s ban on dreadlocks (EEOC v. Catastrophe Mgmt. Sols., 852 F.3d 1018 (11th Cir. 2016)). The court reasoned that the employer’s policy wasn’t racial discrimination because the hairstyle was what the court characterized as a “cultural practice” and, unlike hair texture, hair that is styled in dreadlocks is not an immutable characteristic of a person’s race that would be protected under Title VII.
The narrow interpretations of Title VII by some courts were noted in the introduction to the federal CROWN Act which was passed in the House of Representatives in March 2022. Fourteen Republicans joined Democrats in support of the legislation with a vote of 235-189, but Republican senators subsequently blocked the bill from being passed in the Senate.
For now, employers need to check the state and local CROWN Act laws in the jurisdictions where they’re located so that they know the specifics of the laws. It’s a good idea for employers to provide training for supervisors and others who make employment decisions to ensure decisions are based on a person’s skills and abilities—and not their hairstyles. In addition, changes to an employer’s dress codes or personal appearance policies may be necessary to ensure compliance with applicable laws.
