A grandmother in East Texas claims the superintendent of her grandson’s school district told her to cut the boy’s hair or put him in a dress.
Randi Woodley told CNN that she took her 4-year-old grandson to his new school in rural Texas last month. The two were going to meet the boy’s teacher, but when they got there, Woodley was reportedly told she needed to see the Tatum Primary School principal.
Woodley said the principal told her that her grandson’s hair — which is slightly below shoulder length — was too long and was in violation of the district’s dress code, which says male students’ hair can’t go below the top of a shirt collar.
Boys are also barred from wearing “ponytails, ducktails, rat-tails, male bun or puffballs,” the dress code says, according to CNN.
Woodley said she was told to either braid the boy’s hair and pin it up in a dress code-approved bun or cut it off.{mosads}
She then went to the superintendent of the Tatum Independent School District and said transgender students are granted an exception to the dress code, so her African American grandson should be allowed to wear his natural hair to school.
Woodley says the superintendent told her that her grandson could wear a dress and say he was a girl to be protected under federal law.
“He told me that I could either cut it, braid it and pin it up, or put my grandson in a dress and send him to school, and when prompted, my grandson must say he’s a girl,” Woodley told local news station KETK.
Tatum Primary School and the superintendent’s office for the Tatum Independent School District declined to comment to CNN. The Hill has reached out to the superintendent’s office for comment.
Another parent has started a petition in the boy’s name that calls for the student to be able to wear his natural hair. It had more than 5,600 signatures as of Saturday afternoon.
The report follows other incidents in which black students have been barred from wearing their natural hairstyles. A Georgia elementary school came under fire last month after it hung a poster dictating “appropriate” and “inappropriate” hairstyles for black students.
Some states, including California, have passed bills adding discrimination based on hair associated with race to their anti-discrimination laws.