In Oklahoma, a little girl named Tiana was sent home from the Deborah Brown Community School because her hair was locked. She’s only 7 years old. She’s also a straight A student whose father is obviously invested in making sure she gets the best out of her education. In other words, she’s pretty close to ideal; the kind of little girl that teachers are proud to have in their classrooms.

Seven year old straight A student, Tiana Parker

But she violated the dress code, which read as follows…

…Hairstyles such as dreadlocks, afros and other faddish styles are unacceptable. For safety reasons, girls weaved hair should be no longer than shoulder length. Boy’s hair is to be short and neatly trimmed. Boys are not allowed to wear earrings.Insert dress code.

In their estimation, a little girl wearing locs or afro puffs is somehow a fad. What’s not a fad? Chemicals, heat and hair weaves. Although Madame CJ Walker only discovered how to make kinky hair lay down and play dead about 100 years ago, the process is now a requirement of early childhood education. And those countless millennia before the process, when Black women rocked the kinky hair that they were born with? Well, you know how fads are. Some last longer than others. Thank god that’s over, though, right? But, just to be clear, once Tiana cuts off her locs, she should be sure that her new head full of Brazilian or Indian weave doesn’t hang below shoulder length.

This isn’t an isolated case. The same dress code popped up at the Horizon Science Academy in Lorraine Ohio earlier this year. After the story went viral, the school’s administration apologized. At the other end of the educational spectrum, you have the business school of Hampton University in Virginia. Their dress code reads like something from IBM circa 1985. Locs? Nope. Cornrows? Don’t be rediculous. Afros? Shut your damn pie hole! But rather than backing down when the internet got restless, the president of their business school doubled down.

“All we’re trying to do is make sure our students get into the job,” Sid Credle President of the Hampton University school of Business told ABC. “What they do after that, that’s you know, their business.”

Mr. Sid Credle, Dean of the Hampton University School of Business. I’m picturing him on cornrows, right now. I suggest you do the same.

Make no mistake, Mr. Sid Credle knows more about the corporate climate than I do. On the other hand, my wife is a natural hair stylist. So I probably know just as much, if not more than he does about how locs are accepted in a corporate environment. I’ll put it like this. Part of the meals that end up on our tables were bought with money from corporate clients. People who, according to Mr. Sid Credle, should be soundly unemployable.

The corporate world, like every other strata of society, is multifaceted. Some firms are very conservative. A lot of firms aren’t.

Because Hampton University is private, Mr. Sid Credle can say and do what he wants. But, I hereby pledge that we won’t be sending any of our straight A children to Hampton. I solemnly hope that Hampton will survive the coming years without the intellectual contribution of my brilliant kids, or hard the earned money of their parents.

But what about these charter schools? Well, welcome to the brave new world of guesswork education. Where the future of your children is taken out of the hands of dedicated educational professionals, and put into the hands of anyone with a gimmick and the willingness to fill out some paperwork. In this case, some arrogant insurance agents who feel that their experience in the high pressure world of accident liability gives them insight into how to teach your children. By the way, they are Black.

In fairness, there are some great charter schools out there. But there are also more than a few that are no better than the public schools. And some are worse. I can think of two off of the top of my head. One is in Ohio. One is in Oklahoma.

You don’t hear too many stories about public schools banning locs or other styles. They know better. Most public school principals know damn well that you can’t mandate that the Black children get their hair permed, hot combed or sewn in. There is no such thing as a mandatory weave in public education. Charter schools, on the other hand, fit into an educational gray area between public and private. Like public schools, they are state funded; just without all of that pesky oversight. Which means that they have plenty of time to figure out how your child’s hair should look.

Like the school in Ohio, this one eventually backed down. Nothing like a viral backlash to test your resolve. But, just think of the other things that they are messing up, that won’t make the headlines. Consider the fact that banning natural hair may not be the worst idea that they’ve had.

Below is an apology from the Horizon Science Academy. I hear the folks at the Deborah Brown Community School have also apologized, but I couldn’t find it. Until I do, read this to yourself with a cowboy accent.

Recently, our school sent home a draft copy of the dress code for the 2013-2014 school year. In the dress code information packet, a statement was made about not allowing a certain hairstyle. This information has offended many people and by no means did we have any intention of creating bias towards any of our students. We truly apologize for this mistake and want to thank everyone for their feedback about the information in our handbook.

Furthermore, we are taking the matter seriously and again apologize for any offense it may have caused. We are currently taking the necessary steps to correct the information and to prevent this from ever happening again. We will be sending the final updated version of our dress code as soon as possible.

If you have read my work, then you know how important education is in my family. Click here to find out.