At Cody Kilgore Unified School District in Nebraska, there is a lawsuit being filed on behalf of a Native American family with two daughters who attend the school. During a lice check at the school, a secretary cut the two little girls’ hair without consent when checking for lice. The family follows the Lakota tradition, which believes that hair is very sacred and should only be cut on special occasion by certain people. Additionally, there is nothing in the school policy that says when conducting a lice check, hair must be cut. In response to this, the school said that there was an unwritten policy for Native American students. After this incident first occurred, the parents contacted the school to make them aware of the religious and cultural reasons for why the girls’ hair shouldn’t be cut, and it still happened another time. The history of this is another concern for the family who follows Lakota tradition. On March 3, 1819, the United States signed the Civilization Fund Act, which brought lots of trauma and harm for Native American families throughout the United States. This was during the same time that many Native American children were sent to boarding schools and forced to conform to the norms of white children. Their long hair was taken away from them during this time as well. The school has attempted to dismiss this case by reasoning that the school officials were unaware of the religious and cultural values, but the court did not accept this.
The
question to investigate here is whether the school violated the children and
family’s First Amendment right to follow their religious beliefs, which include
the sacred beliefs held about their hair. Considering the side of the school,
we must ask if this was done to protect and uphold health and safety measures
for other students and the school community at large. Was there a compelling
state interest to check for lice and then proceed to cut the hair of the
students? It is common practice to check for head lice of young students, and the National Association of School Nurses writes that there are approximately 6-12 million head lice cases in children 3-11 years old each year. Given this
information, it seems appropriate that the school does conduct head lice checks
for elementary school age children. However, cutting hair could be an overreach
of this policy. Additionally, the Cody Kilgore School District handbook had no
mention that cutting hair was part of this conduct. Something else to consider
is that the head lice check was conducted by a school secretary and not a nurse.
The CDC notes that, “Misdiagnosis of nits is very common during nit checks conducted by nonmedical personnel.” This suggests that the school secretary checking
for lice and proceeding to cut the hair of the children is already questionable.
Moving on, we must also think about how this action could have affected both
the children and their family and how this could have infringed on their
religious beliefs and rights.
In my
opinion, this situation did violate the children and family’s First Amendment
right to practice and follow their religious and cultural beliefs. Although,
some people might believe that cutting a few strands of hair is not a
substantial burden, for this family, who follow the Lakota tradition, it is a
huge burden and something they believe is very sacred. Johnson, one of the
parents in this case, said that “We believe our hair is our spirit; as it grows, our spirit grows.” Hair is something central to their religious beliefs.
The parents even mentioned that immediately before and after the hair cutting,
three of their grandmothers died. Considering other cases, I’m reminded of the
case Katie wrote about for her blog post. She wrote about Di Liscia v.
Austin where members of the US Navy received an order that they must be
clean-shaven for health concerns, despite their religious beliefs. In both
cases, there are health concerns related to hair and one’s religious beliefs. However,
in this case, the individuals are much different. Here, they are children who
are much more impressionable and might not now know any better. They can be much
more impacted by the cutting of their hair. Additionally, they aren’t members
of the military who are treated differently from the United States citizens. I
think this is an important distinction, and why we must consider this differently
because we must protect children.
Not only
must we consider the impact on children, but also how we must protect the First
Amendment right to safeguard individual’s free exercise and protect minorities
from the tyranny of the majority. Infringing on the religious practices and
beliefs of this family and their Lakota tradition directly contradicts what the
First Amendment was intending to do. Of course, we should also consider the
compelling state interest to protect health and wellbeing, but based on
information from the CDC, National Association of School Nurses, and even the
handbook from the school district, there were less restrictive means available
to mitigate and protect the general community from a head lice outbreak. The
neutrality of the head lice policy by the school was also questionable because
they stated that there was an unwritten policy for Native American students.
Part of the lawsuit claims that this policy was not neutral and violated the
students of their right to an education free of racial discrimination under
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Overall, we must consider if this action was absolutely
necessary by the school, so much so that it violated the religious beliefs of
this family. This case could prove to be helpful for future cases involving school children and religious minorities. What is permissible and what is impermissible regarding health and safety - while also protecting rights and the free exercise of religion?
Links:
The Traumatic Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools - The Atlantic
Head Lice Management in Schools - National Association of School Nurses (nasn.org)
9 comments:
I agree with Hanna that the rights of the children and the family were violated. Mainly speaking to the rights of the children, the children were most likely not aware of such sacredness of their hair, therefore they could not stick up for themselves. I will also acknowledge that the school may not have known about the sacredness either, but the parents have every right to challenge the school in this case. The compelling state interest to physically cut one's hair when checking for lice is completely irrational, therefore I believe that the family's, most importantly, the children's First Amendment rights to follow their religious beliefs were violated.
I also agree that this is a violation of the free exercise rights of the children and family members. Although it can be argued that the public health danger presented by lice can possibly override religious freedom, this is a clear violation of first amendment rights. Unconsenual interference with religious practices without a compelling state interest is unconstitutional. While this can be considered a slippery slope, especially in current discussions over COVID restrictions and religious practices, in this particular case, this is an overreach by the school district. Having this particular hairstyle is a sincere religious belief and there was not even convincing evidence that the hair needed to be cut, as there were less oppressive measures that could have been taken.
This is definitely a violation of the family's right to free exercise. While there definitely is a compelling state interest to make sure that there is not an outbreak of lice within the public school system, there is a reasonable way to accomplish that goal without cutting the student's hair. Cutting hair is not necessary to make sure that a student does not have lice, and even if it was, I don't see why the students shouldn't be granted an exemption. The students have a right to be secure in their persons and any school making alterations to their body without the consent of the children or the parents should not be permitted.
This is a really well delivered argument, and I definitely agree. I think Di Lisa v. Austin is very different due to the difference in weight of state interest. The issue of COVID-19 vaccines relates to the public health interest in the context of an ongoing global pandemic. The outbreak of lice is not comparable to the pandemic and therefore the state's interest is not compelling enough to compromise the family's right to free exercise. This makes me wonder if cases such as this family's will not be related to the precedent of pandemic cases in the future. But in the comparison of these two specific cases, I believe the comparison of state interest does solidify the school violated their right of free exercise.
This is a very interesting case and argument. I definitely agree with your argument. I believe that the school violated these children's free exercise rights, especially since they had warned the school about it and they continued to do so. I do not find the slippery slope argument that this could lead to other exemptions to be very strong. The COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine requirements are much more of a public health issue and not following them would cause much more harm to society than lice would. Additionally, these students are not refusing to get treated for lice. Instead, they are asking for their hair not to get cut while being checked, which is very possible to do.
I believe that this case is very clear-cut, and should be ruled in favor of the family and their children. There are a few important aspects of this case that would help bring the court to a ruling. The first being that the cutting of the hair is not even a part of the lice-checking process. It was an un-written rule, which is discriminatory towards those that follow the Lakota tradition of having long hair. That brings me to my second point. That being that nobody else, besides the family and their children, is allowed to interpret the sincerity of their beliefs regarding their hair. That would be an extremely slippery slope that all courts are weary of approaching. It is clear that those who partake in the Lakota tradition are to have their beliefs respected, while still being checked for lice like other students. There is no substantial burden that could ever warrant the cutting of these childrens hair.
This case is quite in favor of the family of Lakota due to both the religious rights and teachings of the Lakota, a historically oppressed and disenfranchised people that the modern courts may seek to rectify, as well as the parental rights. While the lice check is in the interest of the children, cutting hair without approval from both the school policy and the family would constitute a violation of their prerogatives, as well as not being of substantial burden to not cut hair and check for lice. I agree with the family's suit and believe that they will and should win.
I also believe that this court case should be ruled in favor of the parents and children. As a result of the tribe traditionally having long hair cutting the children's hair to remove lice could be considered a violation of their right to exercise because there are other avenues to lice removal. Although I do see the compelling state interest where stopping the spread of lice in schools would be concerned, but if cutting hair isn't part of the regular lice removal procedure they shouldn't be required to cut their hair.
Post a Comment