A Kentucky high school issued a new school policy at a school council meeting Friday made up of parents and teachers that is forbidding locs and cornrows worn by students this coming year.
Some parents told WAVE Thursday that the council is made up of members who may not understand how natural African-American hair works.
The policy was discovered by Kentucky State House candidate Attica Scott when her daughter was registering for classes at Butler Traditional High School in Louisville. She told the Courier-Journal that this rule "stinks of institutional racism."
"I don’t understand why we’re going to focus on something like natural hair styles when we should be focused on education," she said. "They specifically outlined hairstyles that are worn most by black kids."
Students told WAVE that the rule is not new and not typically enforced, but the current complaints may draw unwanted attention to their hair.
"African-Americans, when we wear our hair naturally, it's not messing with anybody, it's not distracting anybody, we're still learning and doing what we're supposed to be doing," student Demarious Dunn said. "It's hair. It shouldn’t be a big deal."
According to the Courier-Journal, Scott tweeted about the policy and tagged the school district, Jefferson County Public Schools, in the message. The school district replied to Scott's tweet and said it was not a policy set by the school district and was restricted to just the high school.
"We will provide guidance to our schools to ensure their policies are not obtrusive, do not conflict with board policy and most importantly do not infringe on the many cultures embraced across our school district," the school district said in a statement on Friday, the Courier-Journal reported.
"This is absolutely (institutionalized) racism," Landie Rucker, whose daughter attends the high school, told the New York Daily News. "The people who made these decisions are all white and their children will not be effected by these enforcements. My daughter has either had her hair braided or her Afro there for all three years. To try to explain to her why this rule is now being enforced is very frustrating. I too graduated from this same school back in 1999. It has always been considered a 'white' school, but we were never mandated or deprived the right to wear our hair in braids or locs. It's absolute racism."
WAVE reported that on Friday, the school's decision-making council made the decision to overturn the policy.
The controversial policy has been suspended at the brief meeting Friday.
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