My e-mail to the Madison Academy

February 10, 2012 at 1:40 pm · Filed under Editorial, education, issues, Opinion ·Tagged Charter school, Flint, gender discrimination, Long hair, Madison Academy, Michigan, School district, sexual discrimination

For the background on this, see my previous article, The 1960′s called and they want their asshole school administrators back! All the bad publicity about this caused the Madison Academy to hold a press conference which they then posted on YouTube, in which they attempt to defend their position without ever addressing the real issues here:

At the end of the video they give an e-mail address, questions@madison-academy.org , so I composed an e-mail response and sent it to them (and actually managed to do it without using profanity!).  This is what I wrote:

Just to preface this, I was born in the 1950′s, and I thought that my generation was the last one to have to fight the battle over whether boys could wear long hair in school.

I just finished watching your press conference on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAEtGy6lmbc

I must say, there was nothing that was said that caused me to change my mind about this issue.  Frankly, I think your position is indefensible.  You guys have backed yourselves into a corner and now it’s simply a matter of not wanting to lose face in front of the student body by allowing a student to “win.”

But you have two issues that were not addressed in the video.  The first is the matter of sexual/gender discrimination.  If you allow female students to wear their hair as long as they like, but deny the male students the right to do the same, anyone with half a brain can see that’s obvious discrimination.

But what I think is the greater issue is that you are a public school, and said as much in the video.  That means that you should not be imposing a particular religious viewpoint or doctrine upon students.  It’s my guess that part of your dislike for short hair is rooted in an opinion expressed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:14.  I won’t even go into the fact that this was Paul’s opinion, written to a specific church in a specific culture at a time that has long since passed, because that’s irrelevant. The point is that even if this is a belief still held by some churches, as a PUBLIC school you have no right to enforce this position upon your students.  If you want to be a PRIVATE academy (and not collect public funds) then I’m sure you have far more discretion in setting policy, but as a PUBLIC school you have no business enforcing the beliefs of a particular religion (and probably a small minority of adherents to that religion) upon your students.

So, this is potentially a matter of both sexual/gender discrimination, and religious discrimination.  And beyond that, there has never been any evidence that males wearing their hair long is in any way disruptive in a classroom setting (and if there were such evidence, I’m sure it would be equally applicable to long hair on females).  If the student had cut his hair relatively short and had then cut it bare in a pattern that exhibited a profanity (a word or an image of a gesture), would that meet your code?  That would comply with the length requirement, but would be far more disruptive.

The point is that sometimes policies are made without thinking through the reasons behind them, nor the unintended consequences.  And one of the unintended consequences could be that the boy or his mother could find a good civil rights attorney that would take his case on a pro bono basis and sue your academy, and I think that as a public school that receives taxpayer money (which means, you receive support from people of all faiths in your district, whether they would voluntarily choose to support your academy or not), you’d have a hard time defending your policy in a court of law.  You simply would not be able to show any harm that would be caused by allowing the student to grow his hair, other than a bit of embarrassment for the school officials that would be backing down from their entrenched (but totally wrong-headed) position.  In the meantime, you are causing genuine and quantifiable harm to the student, by depriving him of an education simply because he will not acquiesce to your unreasonable demands.

I am not a lawyer, but if I had to bet, my bet would be that the actions of your board are going to cost your school district, and perhaps some of your board members personally, some significant money before this is all over.  The longer you delay allowing J.T. back into your school, the greater the damage becomes.  Maybe you will be lucky and nothing further will come of this, but if it were MY child or grandchild involved in this, I’d be lawyering up right now.  All of this is just my opinion, and again, I’m not a lawyer, but as a PUBLIC school it seems to me that you have a duty to all the taxpayers of your district and to all the students that attend your school to NOT impose requirements based on a particular religion’s doctrine.

One other thing you should know — up until I read about this incident, I was generally a supporter of the idea of charter schools in Michigan.  What I have learned from this is that charter schools can be as bad as public schools, in that they put rules in front of common sense.  So why should we drain taxpayer money away from the public school system to support a system that’s just as bad, and that may be taking that money to impose the values of a particular religion upon their students?  Therefore, in the future, I will not be voting for any ballot initiative that provides additional support for charter schools, and I hope that Michigan legislators will at least start to investigate whether charter schools are actually religious schools in disguise, taking public money to promote narrow-minded beliefs.

I will advise you that should you choose to respond to this email, I reserve the right to publish your response in my blog, The Michigan Telephone blog, which can be found at:

http://michigantelephone.wordpress.com/

Thank you for your consideration of my viewpoint on this issue.

Now, I doubt I will get any sort of response on this, but who knows?  Maybe it will influence them to reconsider their position.  I can tell you that apparently J.T. and his mother didn’t think much of this press conference:

Mom of Locks of Love Teen ‘Shocked’ By School’s Statement

I will also note that if you disagree with the school’s decision, you might want to sign this petition on Change.org (note that the site has been slow to load today, so please be patient and/or refresh the page if it doesn’t come up the first time you click).  I don’t know if this will make any difference in the short term, but should Ms. Plante decide to take legal recourse against the district, a show of public disgust with the Madison Academy couldn’t hurt.

As I said in my response, in my opinion (and again, remember that I’m not an attorney), this is nothing more nor less than a matter of discrimination — at the very least it’s sexual/gender based discrimination, but also I feel that it is probably religious discrimination as well.  Why?  Because in my experience, most people who are dead-set against boys having long hair are either coming from a military background or a religious background, and looking at the administrators of the Madison Academy on the video (particularly the one that did all the speaking), they don’t impress me as military types, and nowhere on the Madison Academy’s web site does it indicate that they are a military prep school.  Although, when I go to that site, I do find it interesting that their Parent/Student Handbook includes this statement:

ADMISSION POLICY (K6) (7-11)*

Madison Academy does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, and national origin (Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964), sex (Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972), disability (Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973), or age (Age Discrimination Act of 1975) in its programs or activities. The following person(s) have been designated to handle inquiries regarding the nondiscrimination policies: [… emphasis added …]

Note that although they mention sex (I had missed that, thanks to Jimi for pointing it out), what’s conspicuously missing there is gender! (also sexual orientation, but that’s probably not germane to this particular issue).  Apparently they feel it’s okay to discriminate on a gender basis. And in fact, they do.  Here is what the Parent/Student Handbook has to say about hair and makeup:

HAIR/MAKEUP

A. Girls
• Hair must be clean, and neat and free of unnatural or distracting colors.
• Hairstyles determined to be distracting by the staff will not be allowed.
• Hair accessories need to be solid color in school colors, black or white and not distracting.
• Hair accessories may not be so numerous or of such size that they make noise when moved.
• Light makeup may be worn in upper grades only. Grades 6, 7, 8,9,and 10
• Light colored lip gloss or protectant for grades 5 and under.
• Makeup determined to be distracting by the staff will not be allowed.
• ONLY Clear nail polish may be worn by students in K-6.
• Students in grades 3 and above will dress for gym class. The PE uniform is to be a solid navy tee shirt worn with solid navy sweat pants or knee length shorts.
• No hats are permitted.

B. Boys
• Hair must be clean, neat, free of unnatural or distracting colors, off the collar, off the ears and out of the eyes.
• No initials, wavy lines, cut-in designs, spiked hair, Mohawks, fauxhawks, pony tails, or pig tails.
• Braids must not touch the collar or must be pinned/braided above the collar.
• Hairstyles determined to be distracting by the staff will not be allowed.
• Facial hair must be removed or barely noticeable.
• No makeup allowed except clear lip protectant.
• No nail polish allowed.
• Students in grades 7 and above will dress for gym class. The PE uniform is to be a solid color tee shirt worn with solid color sweat pants or knee length shorts.
• No hats are permitted.

I’ve bolded the part about hair, because as you can see, there are requirements for boys that do not apply to girls.  Girls can allow their hair to touch their collars, their ears, and to grow over their eyes (that’s not distracting?). We can also assume that a girl could wear “initials, wavy lines, cut-in designs, spiked hair, Mohawks, fauxhawks, pony tails, or pig tails” (unless, of course, the hairstyle is determined to be distracting by the staff, whatever that means — talk about arbitrary). Were this the 1950′s, one might not find such a distinction unusual, but this is 2012 and these rules seem like the sort of nonsense that these kids’ grandparents had to endure.  You can get an idea of how anal the school administration is just by reading some of the other rules.

Frankly, I’m not sure why J.T. would even want to go to this school (or why his mother would want to send him there), unless the other public schools in his area are really that awful.  And if they are that awful, maybe it’s in part because the Madison Academy is siphoning of taxpayer money that should have gone to support those other public schools.

I was dead serious when I said that “I hope that Michigan legislators will at least start to investigate whether charter schools are actually religious schools in disguise, taking public money to promote narrow-minded beliefs.”  It really seems as though that might be the case here.

More:
Limiting men’s hair length can be religious discrimination!

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