Texas Lawyer Features Akin Gump Pro Bono Win in School Policy Discrimination Case

“African American Student Won't Have to Cut His Dreadlocks After Akin Gump Pro Bono Win,” an article published by Texas Lawyer, reports on how a pro bono team from Akin Gump, working in conjunction with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, won a preliminary injunction in a case involving two Black students at Texas’ Barbers Hill High School.

The school’s policy requires male students to keep their hair short. The students wore locs as an expression of their racial identity and cultural traditions and, in filing suit, alleged that the school district engaged in intentional race and sex discrimination under the Constitution and federal and Texas law. Both students left the school because the school district had a policy on male students’ hair that made locs impossible to wear down and then revised the policy so that they couldn’t be tied up, as one of the two students had been forced to do in order to comply with the previous policy.

In granting the preliminary injunction, the court found that the plaintiffs’ locs deserved free speech protection and stopped the school from enforcing the hair policy.

Akin Gump litigation senior counsel Roxanne Tizravesh said of the win, “This decision has made us all very excited and proud and we’re very hopeful we will ultimately be able to achieve success in what will eventually be a trial to come down the line.” She also noted the team’s satisfaction that one of the two students will be able to attend school in the fall without having to cut his locs.

To learn more about Akin Gump’s efforts in this case, click here.