‘Neat, trimmed haircut’: Did hoops coach rule violate Shawnee Mission school policy?
Shawnee Mission South High School boys basketball head coach Brett McFall claims a player’s hairstyle has had no bearing on a prospect’s chance to make the team. But one of the veteran coach’s expectations, laid out in black and white, cast doubt on the assertion that everyone competed on a level playing field.
“Each athlete will maintain a neat, well-trimmed haircut,” a long-standing team rule once read. What defines neat and well-trimmed, Coach?
McFall is pretty good at X’s and O’s — the Raiders won the 2013 Kansas Class 5 state title with an undefeated (25-0) record. He’s also a quick learner. The team rule requiring a well-maintained coif was rescinded Tuesday after The Kansas City Star Editorial Board asked about the subjective policy, which could inadvertently leave minority student-athletes unfairly sidelined.
The edict was implicitly, explicitly and culturally biased. It also potentially violated a Shawnee Mission School Board of Education policy that prohibits discrimination based on hairstyles.
The Shawnee Mission South head coach apparently needs more diversity training than the refresher course district employees must undertake yearly.
The topic had never been addressed one-on-one with a player in more than a dozen years, McFall said. So why have the rule in place? McFall pointed to the 2013 team as an example that he never instituted a hair ban.
A team photo of the championship squad hangs inside the school gymnasium. It features players of all races, but not one has dreadlocks, cornrows or twists, all hair styles associated with African American or Hispanic culture.
A grooming policy may be necessary for safety reasons. Arbitrary rules should never be exclusionary or discriminatory against a group of people.
We may never know how many students at Shawnee Mission South interested in basketball were denied a fair shake to make the team. California and New York made such acts illegal with passage of the CROWN Act, anti-discrimination legislation that protects the hairstyle choices of employees and K-12 students in each state.
The law prohibits discriminatory behavior due to a person’s preferred hairstyles such as braids, dreadlocks, Afros, twists and cornrows. Black people and other minorities often bear the brunt of these outdated policies. Similar legislation was considered in the Kansas Legislature last session but ultimately stalled.
Jesse Washington, a senior writer with The Undefeated, opined on the inherent racist connotation that comes with grooming requirements for athletes in a 2019 article.
“There is a long history of white people trying to legislate and regulate the gravity-defying, shape-shifting glory of Black hair,” Washington wrote. “White people may think their rules are neutral, but they come from a mindset that, consciously or not, defines white hair as normal and Black hair as deviant.”
Washington continued: “Black hair must be controlled, conform or cut down. Its mere existence is often seen as illegal, from a North Carolina pool banning swimmers with (dreadlocks) to a Texas junior high school coloring in a boy’s part with a Sharpie.”
Grooming restrictions have historically been used to keep young minorities from opportunities afforded to their white counterparts in sports, employment and other sectors of life. Left to interpretation, McFall’s policy could have left a buzz cut-free kid without a team.
And that is hardly playing by the rules.
This story was originally published November 10, 2021 at 5:00 AM.