How Administrators Cheat

While we can complain about how judges cheat, we mustn’t forget that the only reason it gets to judges for them to cheat is because administrators have to cheat first.

Administrators first have to make up specious reasons for enforcing a rule that infringes on personal liberty. Then they have to double down and decide to fight to keep their rule, often in the process coming up with even more ridiculous justifications. I am also deeply suspicious that some of this is prompted by their own incompetence in dealing with something that ought to be part of their daily competence.

I’m reminded of this by a recent story about a kindergartner’s mohawk haircut.

I looked a lot at haircut regulations when I was working on my lawsuit against the Columbus Metropolitan Library rule regarding bare feet. They are part of what is called a liberty interest in personal appearance. A lot of these battles were fought in the 1960s and 1970s, when the short hair (on boys) of the 1950s gave way to the hippie look of subsequent decades.

Legally, what happened is that some Appeals Districts recognized a liberty interest and some didn’t. The United States Supreme Court never took a case regarding hair length in school children, though they eventually did take one regarding hair length for policemen and firemen. (In those cases they upheld the regulation, since police were quasi-military and needed the extra discipline, and firemen had various pieces of equipment that hair would get in the way of.)

Here in Ohio where I live, and where the kindergartner story occurred, the Court of Appeals explicitly did not recognize the liberty interest.

One of the original court cases was Jackson v. Dorrier, 958 F.2d 1242 (1970). Their hair-length rule was interpreted to require, for boys

that hair in the front may not come below the eyebrows, ears must show clear of hair and hair in the back is to be tapered and not be long enough to turn up.

Sounds pretty tame, particularly when compared with what we see all around us these days.

The boys involved in the case were Michael Jackson and Barry Steven Barnes. After some initial skirmishes,

When the new school term opened in September 1968 Jackson presented himself with hair over the lapel of his coat in the back and down to the tips of his earlobes on the sides, and with sideburns and a mustache. Barnes appeared with hair down to his shoulders and with a mustache, a beard and long sideburns.

But the stupidity shows up in the results of the hearing held by the judge in the case. Here’s how the Court of Appeals summarized it.

There is evidence to support the conclusion that the wearing of excessively long hair by male students at Donelson High School disrupted classroom atmosphere and decorum, caused disturbances and distractions among other students and interfered with the educational process. Members of faculty of Donelson High School testified that the wearing of long hair by Jackson and Barnes was an obstructing and distracting influence to a wholesome academic environment. A teacher of history and social studies stated that two boys with long hair were a distracting influence in her class; that they were “constantly combing, flipping, looking in mirrors and rearranging their hair,” attracting the attention of other students and interfering with classroom teaching; and that the train of thought of both the students and teachers was interrupted. An English teacher testified that she often asked a boy to put away his comb and refrain from combing his hair in class. She described long hair on male students as a disturbing and distracting influence on educational processes in her classes and other school activities at Donelson High School. A teacher of industrial arts testified that girls with long hair were required to wear hair nets as a safety precaution and that long hair on boys was a safety hazard in shop work. One teacher said that other students pay more attention to a boy with long hair than to what the teacher is trying to teach. Another teacher, testified that when her class was attended by the boys with long hair hardly a day would go by that she would not have to interrupt her teaching and say: “Put your combs away. This is not a beauty parlor This is a school classroom.”

Other teachers testified to like effect before the District Judge, along with several Donelson High School students, including the vice president of the student body and the president of the senior class. The vice president of the student body described how the long hair of Jackson and Barnes, and their disobedience of, the school regulation, set off a chain reaction of conversation, speculation, and excitement among other students at the beginning of the 1968-69 school term. He testified concerning a threat by some of the students to cut off the long hair of Jackson and Barnes.

That’s just hard to read without screaming at the screen. It’s clear that the boys were jerks, common among a certain set of high-schoolers who really don’t want to be there. The hair was just their way of causing trouble. If hadn’t been hair, it would have been something else.

And if the other students were all that distracted by “flipping” the hair, then how the heck were they dealing with girls who flipped their hair?

If they boys are causing trouble, make them stop the trouble; don’t attack a neutral style of dress. This case is really about the incompetence of the administrators failing to handle these sorts of boys, not something like hair-length.

And the bit about disobedience setting off “a chain reaction of conversation, speculation, and excitement among other students” is putting the cart before the horse. If they would have just ignored the hair-length, none of the other stuff would have been a problem. Regarding the threat of some to cut the long hair, that’s blaming the victim and allowing bullying—the administrators could have shown their true worth by neutrally protecting all of their students from violence.

[In my high school at about the same time, our student body president cleverly finessed the issue. It was the 150th (?) anniversary of the founding of our town. He got the administrators to allow long hair and facial hair as part of the celebration festivities, so we got to see high-school boys trying to see what sort of scraggly beards they could come up with. Situation defused; no disruptions; learning continued without the expense of drama or a lawsuit.]

We’re seeing the same sort of incompetence and cheating from the administrators in this case of the kindergartner with the mohawk.

Ethan Clos and his Mohawk

That’s actually pretty cute.

But from the story, is was all about disruption.

Castle said Ethan thought he was “cool” after he got the haircut during spring break last week and he got a lot of attention from his classmates when he returned to class.

“They seen his hair like it was. All the little kids were going over and feeling on it and everything,” Castle said.

Clark Shawnee School District officials, however, told Castle her son’s hairdo caused a disturbance as the teachers in the classroom couldn’t get the attention of the students.

Superintendent Gregg Morris said the hairstyle was a distraction for students and violates district rules.

Hello? We’re talking kindergarten here. Everything distracts a kindergartner. It’s the job of the teachers to guide the kids through distractions. It would be useful for the kids to continue to learn and obey despite distractions.

It would not have been hard for the teacher to have let everybody have their chance to touch the mohawk and then have a short discussion about diversity and respecting people’s choices.

Situation defused. Competence demonstrated. Continue with lesson plan.

But no, these folks had to cheat and double down. They came up with specious reasons that hid their incompetence, and everybody up the line, instead of stopping to think, just piled on with idiocy. (The bit about how the haircut was emulating a high-school coach is just priceless, particularly for the rationalization.)

I found the same sort of attitude with my barefoot lawsuits. “Authority shall not be questioned.” “I have the power, and I shall use it.” Rules are more important than anything else.

Double-down! Double-down!