FILE – The Capitol of Puerto Rico stands in San Juan, Puerto Rico, July 29, 2015. Legislators held a public listening to on Jan. 23, 2024 on a invoice that seeks to ban discrimination towards sure hairstyles. (AP Photograph/Ricardo Arduengo, File)
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Legislators in racially various Puerto Rico have opened a public debate on a invoice to explicitly prohibit discrimination towards hairstyles resembling cornrows and Afros, sparking a heated debate.
Native authorities officers argue the laws is pointless as a result of federal and native legal guidelines already ban such discrimination. However Puerto Rican activists mentioned at a listening to Tuesday that the island’s Afro Caribbean neighborhood nonetheless faces discrimination and desires specific safety in relation to public providers, work, schooling and housing.
“I’m 23 years outdated, and I’m bored with this downside,” mentioned Julia Llanos Bultrón, a instructor who wears cornrows. “I’m very dissatisfied with a system that pushes us to vary the hair with which we’re born.”
Llanos mentioned {that a} college within the northeast city of Fajardo provided her a job final yr given that she lower her hair as a result of they didn’t permit locks. She declined.
Comparable incidents had been recounted by others who spoke at a crowded public listening to held at San Juan’s seaside Capitol constructing, noting that the hairstyles in query are culturally vital and carry historic significance.
Greater than 1.6 million individuals within the U.S. territory of three.2 million establish as being of two or extra races, whereas almost 230,000 establish solely as Black, in keeping with the U.S. Census.
Lorraine León Ramírez, mom of two sons who’ve Afros, mentioned her youngest was banned from attending two completely different faculties till he lower his hair.
“It was one of many worst experiences we’ve had as a household,” she mentioned.
“The large query is, is it truthful that our kids should develop up with rules that undermine their identification? The reply isn’t any,” she mentioned. “It’s time to interrupt these stigmas.”
A neighborhood in Texas has been grappling with an identical difficulty even after the state handed a regulation that went into impact in September to ban race-based hair discrimination.
The household of a Black highschool scholar in Belvieu, Texas, is arguing that his suspension since August has been a violation of the brand new regulation. The college says that the size of Darryl George’s hair, falling beneath his eyebrows and ear lobes, violates the varsity’s gown code.
In Puerto Rico, authorities officers have famous that the island’s legal guidelines and structure, together with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, defend from discrimination. However a precedent was set in 2016 when a U.S. Courtroom of Appeals dismissed a discrimination lawsuit after discovering that an employer’s no-dreadlock coverage in Alabama didn’t violate Title VII.
Throughout Tuesday’s listening to, the co-author of the invoice, Puerto Rico Sen. Ana Irma Rivera Lassén, mentioned she didn’t perceive the federal government’s place. “What’s the downside with including specific safety?” she mentioned.
Backing her was Puerto Rican college scholar Alanis Ruiz Guevara, who mentioned she has been pushing for creation of the invoice as a result of particular hairstyles together with braids, locks and Bantu knots will not be lined by sure legal guidelines.
Others pushing for the invoice is famend Puerto Rican writer Mayra Santos-Febres.
“All of this authorized work is so vital as a result of it creates a protocol that’s wanted now,” she mentioned. “We’d like instruments to defend ourselves from systemic racism.”
Debate over the invoice is anticipated to proceed in upcoming weeks.
Within the U.S. mainland, Texas and least 23 different states have implemented a version of the CROWN Act, which stands for “Create a Respectful and Open World for Pure Hair.” It bans coiffure discrimination inside employment, housing, schooling and public lodging locations. The U.S. Home of Representatives approved a federal version of it in 2022, however it failed within the Senate.
Some authorities officers within the Caribbean also have been pushing to relax hair codes at faculties, workplaces and authorities workplaces.
