Native American child banned from kindergarten

Jessica Yee, who has occasionally contributed posts to Feministing, writes on Racialicious (original post at Shameless) about 5 year old Adriel Arocha who is being banned from his Houston-area kindergarten class. Why, you ask?

As an Apache, he has long hair that he has been growing in his Native cultural tradition that “violates” this school’s dress code rules.
The kicker though is that the school board is willing to make exceptions on religious or other “proven” moral grounds, but doesn’t think that being Native American cuts it.

Yee points out that growing your hair is a tradition in many Indigenous cultures: “Long hair carries our life experiences and reminds us about the teachings we’ve received along the way.”
But apparently that’s not good enough for Superintendent Curtis Rhodes, who says, “I was trying to find out what recognized religion they are that discusses they cannot cut their hair and the information I received then was basically it’s their choice.” Sounds like a real charmer. If you want to give Rhodes a piece of your mind, his contact information is here.