Rylee MacKay has been dying her hair auburn for the past six
months—since school started in the fall. But on February 4th, her
middle school’s vice principal kicked her out of class because he said her hair
violated the school’s dress code, which states that “Hair, including beards,
mustaches and sideburns, should be groomed so that it is neat and clean. Hair
color must be a naturally occurring color; i.e. red, brown, black, blonde.”
Auburn, a reddish brown, was apparently outside of that
dress code, at least for this touch up. Vice principle Jan Goodwin saw Rylee in
the halls and told her to go to the office. Her recently touched up hair didn’t
look natural enough to Goodwin.
“In the
light he said it was pinkish-purplish,” Rylee said to KUTV. “He told me to
have it fixed by the next day or I couldn’t come back to school.”
Both Rylee and her mother refused to dye her hair back to
brown. Amy MacKay, her mother said that she wouldn’t force her daughter to
change her hair color. “My daughter feels beautiful with the red hair. Changing
her hair really changed her; she really blossomed,” she said. “And now I have
to say, ‘No, sorry, you have to dye it brown?’ I’m not going to change it
back.”
Because there isn’t a specific palette to go by, MacKay
argues that the district’s policy on hair color is far too volatile and
subjective. The school district, of course, disagrees.
“We deal with dress code issues nearly every day,
specifically hair issues maybe once per week,” said HMS’s principal, Dr. Roy
Hoyt. “Most of the time it is a judgment call for the administration… This
student’s hair did not meet the expectation of naturally colored hair. We apply
this standard consistently to all students and nearly every parent is
supportive.”
After four days of intensive washing, Rylee’s hair finally
faded enough to go back to school. Hoyt explained that the behavioral
expectation is in compliance with the small conservative community in which HMS
resides.
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