US states considering banning bias based on hairstyles

TOPEKA, Kansas (AP) — Black female legislators in two predominantly white Midwestern states urged their Republican colleagues Tuesday to join a national push to outlaw discrimination based on hairstyles such as braids and dreadlocks.

Legislative committees in Kansas and Wisconsin held separate hearings on similar proposed revisions to their states’ anti-discrimination laws.

Four black female legislators in Wisconsin and one in Kansas, all of them Democrats, said employers and teachers often wrongly see white people’s hair as the standard for what’s clean and professional.

“Imagine waking up every morning knowing you’ve got to go to work and can’t be yourself,” Wisconsin state representative Rep. LaKeisha Myers, a black Milwaukee Democrat, said during an Assembly Constitution and Ethics Committee hearing.

She is the chief sponsor of the bill in Wisconsin’s Assembly.

The proposals would ban bias in housing, employment and public accommodations based on hairstyles “historically associated with race” such as braids, locs and twists.

The Democratic lawmakers and other supporters of the legislation said black women have felt compelled for years to straighten their hair with harsh chemicals or hot appliances to avoid affecting their chances of getting a job, winning a promotion or staying employed.

California, New York and New Jersey enacted such laws last year and similar measures have been introduced in 20 other states, including Kansas and Wisconsin, according to the CROWN Coalition, a movement founded by beauty products maker Dove and the National Urban League, Color Of Change and the Western Center on Law and Poverty advocacy groups.

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