My Hair Is Not Like Yours: Workplace Hair Grooming Policies for African American Women as Racial Stereotyping in Violation of Title VII

Authors

Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander, University of Georgia's Terry College of Business
Linda F. Harrison, Nova Southeastern University

Abstract

This article argues that workplace discrimination based on hair grooming policies disproportionately impacts African American women. The article seeks to establish that natural hair is an immutable characteristic, as is all hair, made mutable by social policies that impose an "acceptable" standard of beauty that was never meant to include or reflect black women. Often placed under workplace or other institutional grooming policies, the article posits that these policies are no more than a continuation of race-based policies that reflect unlawful stereotyping under Title VII and should be eliminated. Lastly, the article proposes a set of questions that test the imposition of such policies and urge the protection from employment discrimination of women who wear their hair in its natural state.

Disciplines

Civil Rights and Discrimination | Labor and Employment Law | Law | Law and Gender | Law and Race | Law and Society | Legal History

Recommended Citation

Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander & Linda F. Harrison, My Hair Is Not Like Yours: Workplace Hair Grooming Policies for African American Women as Racial Stereotyping in Violation of Title VII, 22 Cardozo J. Equal Rts. & Soc. Just. 437 (2016).
Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/cardozoersj/vol22/iss3/2