Appeals Court Rules That Employees Don't Have A Right To Wear Dreadlocks

Larry D. Christmas Jr., another individual that, similar to Chastity Jones, lost a job offering after refusing to cut his dreadlocks

A federal appeals court has ruled that banning employees form wearing their hair in dreadlocks isn't racial profiling.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made a 3-0 decision this past Thursday, dismissing a lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against a company that refused to hire a black woman because she wouldn't cut her dreadlocks.

The case originally began in 2013 when the EEOC accused an insurance claims processing company in Mobile, Alabama, of discriminating against an applicant named Chastity Jones. Jones applied to work for Catastrophe Management Solutions as a customer service representative in 2010, and was initially hired. However, the company's human resources manager told her she needed to cut her dreadlocks to comply with its grooming policy, explaining that dreadlocks "tend to get messy."

When Jones refused to cut her hair the company withdrew the offer.

The EEOC alleged that the "prohibition of dreadlocks in the workplace constitutes race discrimination because dreadlocks are a manner of wearing the hair that is physiologically and culturally associated with people of African descent."

The case ultimately delved into the complexities surrounding the concept of race, especially in regards to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (the federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin and religion). Courts have interpreted this to mean discrimination based on skin color and other "immutable traits," but it's the latter that ultimately led to the court's decision.

While Judge Adalberto Jordan recognized that throughout the years there have been requests to interpret Title VII more expansively by "eliminating the biological conception of 'race' and encompassing cultural characteristics associated with race," he also was reluctant for the court to lead such an inquiry, instead stating that it's a debate that needs to be done "through the democratic process."

However, the EEOC still finds the decision problematic. "We believe the court was incorrect when it held that the employer's actions could not be proven to be race discrimination. We are reviewing our options," a spokeswoman for the EEOC said.