In today's edition of absurd school dress codes, a 6th-grader in Baytown, Texas has been suspended over two lines shaved into the front of the left side of his head.
Xavier Davis had this haircut for six months before anyone said anything about it. Then suddenly, for some reason, a teacher at Cedar Bayou Junior High School told him on Thursday that he wasn't allowed to sport it at school.
"I was walking into class, and she saw my hair and said, 'You can't have two lines in your hair. Go to the office,'" Davis told KPRC Houston. There, he was warned that if he still had the same haircut when he came in on Monday, he'd be suspended.
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Since he didn't find this rule reasonable (and you can't exactly add hair to your head), he kept his hair the same. So, as promised, he got a day-long in-school suspension on Monday.
To prevent him from facing further punishment, Davis's mom got creative. "She took a Sharpie permanent marker and colored the bottom of his hair in," his dad Matt Davis described. "So in order for him to get an education, we have to treat his hair like a coloring book, I guess."
Why all this fuss? The school district's dress code includes the following rule: "Letters, symbols, and designs beyond a single straight line which draw attention to an individual shall not be permitted. The administrator/supervisor reserves the right to determine if a hairstyle is disruptive to the educational process."
But it seems like if anything's an impediment to learning, it's Davis's inability to attend class. As his father said, "It's nonsense. We send him here to get an education. We send him here to learn. It's not about his haircut."
There are plenty of other instances like this, from a girl who had to change because her dress was cut above her knees to another who had to leave her college's gym for wearing a cropped tank top. Hopefully, as students keep exposing the ridiculous punishments they're facing over superficial traits, schools will reevaluate rules that don't serve any purpose other than to shame people.