WASHINGTON (AP) — Black people who wear hairstyles like Afros, cornrows or tightly coiled twists should not face bias in society, school and the workplace, the US House said Friday in voting to make it explicit that such discrimination is a violation of federal civil rights law.
“There are folks in this society who think because your hair is kinky, it is braided, it is in knots or it is not straightened blonde and light brown, that you somehow are not worthy of access,” Democratic Representatives Bonnie Watson Coleman, the lead sponsor of the bill, said during debate on the House floor.
“Well, that’s discrimination.”
The House voted 235-to-189 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of hair texture and hairstyles.
The bill now goes to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. President Joe Biden has already said he would sign the bill, known as the Crown Act, into law.
All but 14 Republicans voted against the measure, calling it unnecessary and a distraction.
They said protections against hair discrimination already exist in several federal laws.
“This is what the Democrats are focused on,” said Ohio Republican Representative Jim Jordan.
“Fourteen months of chaos and we’re doing a bill on hair.”
But House Democrats noted that, in several instances, judges have dismissed civil rights cases on the basis that the law does not directly cover discrimination on the basis of hair.
The House bill makes clear that hair is in fact included.