On 17 June 2011 the UK High Court ruled that a secondary school in London erred in their prohibition forbidding students from wearing their hair in a "cornrow" style braid. The Court said such a measure was indirectly discriminatory against the African-Caribbean tradition.
In SG v St Gregory's Catholic Science College, the claimant was of African-Caribbean ethnicity and 11 years old at the time of the dispute. In accordance with his culture's traditions, he had not had his hair cut since birth and it was kept in cornrows. Cornrows were prohibited by his school's uniform policy and so he was not permitted to attend school so long as he kept his cornrow style.
Lawyers for the claimant argued that this policy was in contravention of equality legislation and that it was discriminatory on grounds of race and sex. The school disagreed, and stated that if there was indirect discrimination that this was justifiable - they said they had implemented a strict hair style policy in order to deter the gang-culture that was prevalent in the area.
The court heard evidence from an expert in African-Caribbean culture on the tradition of African-Caribbean men to wear their hair in cornrows, a practice which dates back to the slave trade. UK High Court judge Collins J. agreed that the aim of the school's policy was legitimate, however he disagreed that the indirect discrimination which it produced was justified and found in favour of the claimant.
Collins J. rejected a previous test set down in R (Watkins-Singh) v. Aberdare High School 2008, namely that the person alleging the offence caused must show that their tradition is of "exceptional importance". Collins J said that this was too high a threshold.
The claimant had also argued that he had also been discriminated on gender grounds as girls in the school were permitted to wear their hair in braids. Collins J. disagreed that there had been any discrimination, as it was commonly accepted that braids were an adequate way for girls to keep their hair in a neat manner.
Of additional interest is the fact that the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) was given permission to intervene in the case. Readers may recall that our last Bulletin featured a PILS Project and Law Centre (NI) presentation on Third Party Intervention Strategies. In the present case, it appeared that the Commission's intervention strategy was resoundingly unsuccessful. The Court found that a report that they commissioned from a "Professor John" was "thoroughly unsatisfactory and, once obtained, should not have been relied on by the EHRC". Collins J commented that "those advising the EHRC showed a decided lack of judgment in serving Professor John's report and producing written arguments based upon it" and he ordered the EHRC to pay costs to the defendant.
Although not updated since the decision in SG v St Gregory's Catholic Science College, the UK Department of Education's Guidelines for schools on school uniforms and related policies states that: "An example of indirect discrimination could be a school that bans 'cornrow' hairstyles. As these are more likely to be adopted by specific racial groups, banning this type of hairstyle without justification could constitute indirect racial discrimination."