{"id":21482,"date":"2022-03-19T18:32:49","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T22:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=21482"},"modified":"2022-03-19T18:32:49","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T22:32:49","slug":"us-house-passes-crown-act-which-would-end-hair-discrimination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2022\/03\/19\/us-house-passes-crown-act-which-would-end-hair-discrimination\/","title":{"rendered":"US House passes Crown Act which would end hair discrimination"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

A ban on race-based hair discrimination in the United States is a step closer after a vote in Congress.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The House of Representatives passed the legislation which seeks to end discrimination against natural hair at work and school.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The Crown (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) Act must still be approved by the Senate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

President Joe Biden has urged lawmakers to swiftly pass the law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Black Americans say they are often treated unfairly at work and in schools because of their natural hair textures or protective styles like braids, knots, twists and locs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

If the Crown Act becomes law, natural hair discrimination would be treated as if it were race or national origin discrimination under federal civil rights law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Until then, advocates say that employers and institutions can discriminate against black Americans based on how they style their natural hair.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Adjoa B Asamoah, legislative strategist for the CROWN Coalition, praised Friday’s vote in the House, but acknowledged a potential uphill battle in the Senate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

“There’s the shift in policy and then there’s a shift in culture,” Ms Asamoah said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

“This is about confronting this Eurocentric standard of beauty, tackling anti-blackness, and lifting the natural African aesthetic. The diversity of Blackness is beautiful.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The CROWN Coalition partners with more than 85 organisations to pass statewide bans on hair discrimination, and advocate for the bill nationally.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Just on Thursday, the Massachusetts House of Representatives unanimously voted to advance its bill to its state senate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

A third of black children in majority-white schools have faced race-based hair discrimination, according to a 2021 study by DOVE and the CROWN Coalition. The survey found 86% of children say they have experienced it by the age of 12.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

More than a dozen states have already passed similar laws aimed at ending hair discrimination.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Just on Thursday, the Massachusetts House of Representatives unanimously voted to advance its bill to its state senate.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

When Chicago mother Ida Nelson was told her four-year-old son Jett’s braids were prohibited by his pre-school, she says she thought administrators were joking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

But when the school told her the hairstyle must be removed in order for him to go class, she decided to fight back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

After months of campaigning, Ms Nelson was able to get the Jett Hawkins Act, which prohibits hair discrimination in schools, passed in Illinois.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

She said Friday’s move to advance the national Crown Act made her feel “vindicated”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

“When we step into our power, epic things get done,” she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

“This was a collective effort from everyone from four-year-olds to senior citizens coming together to say, ‘No, our hair and our ability to show up as our authentic selves is not negotiable’.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

A statement from President Biden said he believed “no person should be denied the ability to obtain a job, succeed in school or the workplace, secure housing, or otherwise exercise their rights based on a hair texture or hair style”.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A ban on race-based hair discrimination in the United States is a step closer after a vote in Congress. The House of Representatives passed the legislation which seeks to end discrimination against natural hair at […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2,3],"tags":[8362,311,8365,8363,8364,6713],"class_list":{"0":"post-21482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-human-rights","8":"category-news","9":"category-usa","10":"tag-crown-act","11":"tag-discrimination","12":"tag-federal-civil-rights-law","13":"tag-hair-discrimination","14":"tag-massachusetts-house-of-representatives","15":"tag-us-house-of-representatives","16":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21485,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21482\/revisions\/21485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}