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2/27/2014 Court: Schools' hair cut policy is gender discrimination » News » Greensburg Daily News, Greensburg, IN
http://www.greensburgdailynews.com/local/x1196461114/Court-Schools-hair-cut-policy-is-gender-discrimination 1/11
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2/27/2014 Court: Schools' hair cut policy is gender discrimination » News » Greensburg Daily News, Greensburg, IN
http://www.greensburgdailynews.com/local/x1196461114/Court-Schools-hair-cut-policy-is-gender-discrimination 2/11
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February 27, 2014
Court: Schools' hair cut policy is gender discrimination
By Boris Ladwig Daily News Greensburg Daily News
GREENSBURG – A court has ruled that Greensburg Community Schools engaged in sex discrimination when theyrequired a male student to cut his hair or lose his spot on the school basketball team.
Parents Patrick and Melissa Hayden had challenged the hair cut requirement’s constitutionality after their son, identifiedin court documents as A.H., was cut from the team in 2010 after he declined to cut his hair.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh District ruled this week that the school’s “policy constitutes sex
2/27/2014 Court: Schools' hair cut policy is gender discrimination » News » Greensburg Daily News, Greensburg, IN
http://www.greensburgdailynews.com/local/x1196461114/Court-Schools-hair-cut-policy-is-gender-discrimination 3/11
discrimination.” The Court partially overturned a ruling by a lower court.
An attorney for the school corporation said he disagrees with the ruling and within the next two weeks will ask the full
court to reconsider.
According to court documents, Greensburg High School head varsity basketball coach Stacy Meyer has an unwritten
policy that requires players to cut their hair above the ears, eyebrows and collar to project a “clean cut” image. Similar
policies apply to boys baseball teams — but not to boys track and football teams, nor to any girls teams.
“Because the hair-length policy on its face treats boys and girls differently, and because the record tells us nothing about
any comparable grooming standards applied to girls playing basketball, the evidence entitles the Haydens to judgmenton their sex discrimination claims,” the court said in its 2-1 ruling.
Patrick Hayden said he feels vindicated for suing the school corporation.
“I think it’s the right decision,” he said. “It’s a big step … that the 7th Circuit ruled in our favor.”
Melissa Hayden, the athlete’s mother, agreed.
“The ruling is a win for … all the male kids, and I hope that they can be who they are and don’t have to conform to a
gender-based stereotype,” she said.
Greensburg Community Schools Superintendent Tom Hunter said that he could not comment on pending litigation, butreferred questions to Tom Wheeler, the Indianapolis-based attorney who is handling the case for the schools.
Wheeler said that the two judges who overturned the lower court’s ruling assumed that the hair cut policy amounted togender discrimination because no such rule applies to girls teams. However, Wheeler said, girls and boys can be treated
differently if schools have a good reason for treating them differently.
Wheeler said the boys basketball players are required to cut their hair because of basketball coaching legend John
Wooden’s demand for uniformity among his players.
Melissa Hayden said that the school’s pursuit of uniformity clashes with the athletes’ appearance on the court, because
the players have, for example, worn socks of different color and length.
And Patrick Hayden said that as a former basketball player — who once was suspended for a game for violating a hair
policy — he understands the need to become part of a team, but when kids put on the uniform, they become part of the
team no matter their hair cut.
Wheeler also said that if a girl made the boys basketball team, as sometimes happens in school sports, she, too, wouldhave to comply with the hair policy, which means that the policy does not constitute gender discrimination.
The Court’s 39-page ruling addressed the issue in occasionally humorous language: “It is also worth reiterating that
Coach Meyer’s policy prohibits far more than an Age-of-Aquarius, Tiny-Tim, hair-crawling-past-the-shoulders sort of
hair style — it compels all male basketball players to wear genuinely short hair. In 2014, it is not obvious that any and all
hair worn over the ears, collar or eyebrows would be out of the mainstream among males in the Greensburg community
at large, among the student body or among school athletes. Even one or two men on this court might find themselves in
trouble with Coach Meyer for hair over the ears.
“We certainly agree that the pedagogical and caretaking responsibilities of schools give school officials substantial
leeway in establishing grooming codes for their students generally and for their interscholastic athletes in particular ….
2/27/2014 Court: Schools' hair cut policy is gender discrimination » News » Greensburg Daily News, Greensburg, IN
http://www.greensburgdailynews.com/local/x1196461114/Court-Schools-hair-cut-policy-is-gender-discrimination 4/11
But that leeway does not permit them to impose non-equivalent burdens on school athletes based on their sex. So far as
this record reveals, that is exactly what the school district has done.”
The Court, like the lower court, rejected the parents’ second argument, that “the hair-length policy arbitrarily intrudesupon their son’s liberty interest in choosing his own hair length and thus violates his right to substantive due process.”
The Court returned the case to the lower court, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, to determine
relief and damages, but Wheeler said that he will ask the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh District to
reconsider the decision of the three-member panel.
“We think we’ve got an excellent appeal,” Wheeler said.
Patrick Hayden said that a lot of people misunderstood why the family decided to file the suit.
“It was about the way we were treated just for questioning the rule by the school,” he said.
He, too, said he will continue to pursue the case.
“I’m not going to stop now,” he said. “I think it’s important to stand up for what’s right.”
His wife concurred.
“It wasn’t about my son only,” she said, “but all those boys out there that experience what my son experienced.”
A.H. is now a 6-2 junior guard for the Norwell High School basketball team in northern Indiana. According to the
photo on his Twitter account, his hair is slightly shorter than it was when he was cut from the Greensburg team. A photo
shared by his mom on Facebook showed the boy with hair above the eyebrows and neck, but covering the top part of
his ears. In the Twitter photo, the hair looks to be just above the ears. His father said that his son now wears his hair
shorter by choice — and that his new school does not have a policy with regard to hair length of student athletes.
The Greensburg Community Schools have not fully determined how much the case will cost, but similar cases typically
cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Contact: Boris Ladwig 812-663-3111 x7401; [email protected]
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February 27, 2014
Court: Schools' hair cut policy is gender discrimination GREENSBURG - A court has ruled that
Greensburg Community Schools engaged in sex discrimination when they required a male student to cut his
hair or lose his spot on the school basketball team. Parents Patrick and Melissa Hayden had challenged
the hai
February 27, 2014
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2/27/2014 Court: Schools' hair cut policy is gender discrimination » News » Greensburg Daily News, Greensburg, IN
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2/27/2014 Court: Schools' hair cut policy is gender discrimination » News » Greensburg Daily News, Greensburg, IN
http://www.greensburgdailynews.com/local/x1196461114/Court-Schools-hair-cut-policy-is-gender-discrimination 6/11
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