Black Parents Sue Pearland Texas School District Saying Staffer Colored In Son’s Hair With Sharpie
UPDATE:
A new lawsuit has been filed by the parents of a Black student alleging three white school officials forced the teen to color in parts of his fade haircut because it violated the school’s dress code.
According to NBC News, Dante Trice and Angela Washington filed their complaint Sunday (August 18) against the Pearland Independent School District, Berry Miller Junior High School Principal Tony Barcelona, discipline clerk Helen Day and teacher Jeanette Peterson.
The suit identifies the student as 13-year-old J.T. and reveals he was in seventh grade when he got a “fade haircut with a line design.”
Pictures of the cut, allegedly obtained in April, show fade lines resembling the letter M.
"The haircut did not depict anything violent, gang-related, obscene or otherwise offensive or inappropriate in any manner. J.T. did not believe the haircut violated any school policy," the lawsuit claims.
The suit alleges J.T. had to make the choice between an in-school suspension, which would make him miss classes possibly resulting his position on the school’s track team, or color in the line design to hide it.
“Under great duress,” the suit claims J.T., who has reportedly never been in trouble before with his school, colored in the fade design with a black sharpie.
The boy’s parents were not contacted, according to the suit, even though their phone numbers were available at the school.
"The jet-black markings did not cover the haircut design line but made the design more prominent and such was obvious to those present at the very beginning of the scalp blackening process," the suit said. "It is commonly understood among scholars and the general public that depicting African Americans with jet black skin is a negative racial stereotype."
Trice and Washington are seeking monetary damages, alleging J.T. suffered from anxiety and depression after the incident.
The lawsuit claims one classmate called him a "thug" while others made his colored in haircut into memes, causing him "mental anguish.”
According to an April statement from the district, the administrator who "mishandled disciplinary action" was placed on administrative leave.
It's unclear which administrator the statement was referring to.
The Pearland Independent School District also changed their dress code after the school year was over with restrictions on fade haircuts removed.
PREVIOUS:
A Texas high school administrator is on leave after using a black marker to draw on a 7th grader’s head for allegedly violating the school’s dress code.
Juelz Trice, a student at Berry Miller Junior High School, recently got a new haircut with a unique design on the side. However, when he went to school last week, he was told his haircut was in violation of the school’s dress code, KTRK reported.
"[The administrator] came over and said, 'You have two options: You can either go to [in-school suspension] or color it in,'" Trice told KTRK.
Trice said the incident made him feel uncomfortable, but he did not want to push back against the administrator due to the amount of attention he received.
"Everyone was coming up to me. It was like the talk of the school that day and the day after,” he told KTRK.
The school administrator then took out a black marker and partially filled in Trice’s haircut.
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Although the school’s dress code states that “extreme hairstyles such as carvings, mohawks, spikes, etc. are not allowed,” the policy does not explicitly state that hairstyles will need to be filled in with marker.
While the Pearland Independent School District did confirm that Trice's haircut was in violation of the dress code, the district did not agree with the administrator’s behavior.
"[The administrator] mishandled disciplinary action," the district said in a statement.
KTRK reports the district went on to say that giving the student an option to color in the hairstyle is "not condoned by the district and does not align with appropriate measures for dress code violations."
When the incident first occurred, Trice’s parents were furious and frustrated for their son.
"When it first happened, I was very upset because I didn't find out until after he got off the bus and he got into the car and said, 'Look what they did to my head,'" Trice's mother, Angela Washington, told KTRK.
"I'm totally disappointed,” his father, Dante Trice, also told the local news station. “Totally disappointed."
Washington said while the administrator has since apologized for their part in the incident, it should not have occurred in the first place.
"They were very apologetic, but it still happened," Washington told KTRK. "Nobody should think that is the correct way to handle a situation."
Juelz Trice has since returned to school.
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