Family says white teacher’s ‘ethnic’ hair remark shows discrimination
Cindy Covington claims her Black daughter felt like an outcast after the incident last fall when a white teacher allegedly called the teen's hair "ethnic" and her own hair "American" and "normal."
A Black student at a high school on Long Island alleges discrimination from a white teacher who she said made repeated racist remarks about her hair, including referring to it as “ethnic.”
CBS New York reported that Cindy Covington said the teacher aimed the “jaw-dropping and offensive” remarks toward her 17-year-old daughter, who was enrolled in a cosmetology class at Sachem High School East last fall.
Her daughter said, “so, if my hair is ethnic hair, then, you know, what type of hair do you have? And she told my daughter she had American hair, she had normal hair,” Covington recalled, according to CBS. Her daughter, she said, responded, “well, you know I’m American too?”
Covington, who questioned what is considered normal and American hair while pointing out that there are various hair textures, said the comments left her daughter feeling like an outcast.
“She started asking to wear wigs,” Covington recalled, adding that her child constantly asked for her hair to be straightened.
The cosmetology teacher reportedly attempted to defend what she said by stating that “ethnic hair” is used in the beauty industry.
However, Covington said she believes everyone belongs to an ethnic group and if that’s the industry language for hair, a significant change is needed. She said she complained to the principal but claimed the discrimination continued.
Christopher Pellettieri, superintendent of Sachem Central School District, asserted that although district officials have yet to receive any official paperwork or notice of the complaint, they will review it.
The family requests an apology, sensitivity training, and monetary damages to ensure that no one else feels less American or normal.
“There’s coarse hair,” Covington attorney Andrew Lieb said, according to CBS, “[and] there’s thin hair.”
For many minority families, situations such as the one Covington’s daughter experienced are why laws such as The CROWN Act — for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural hair — are necessary.
A group of Black women who wanted to combat hair discrimination in 2019 pushed for the CROWN Act, theGrio previously reported. Since then, at least 18 states, including New York, have passed the legislation.
New York’s CROWN Act equates hair discrimination to racial discrimination.
However, people who live in states and jurisdictions without such safeguards are still subject to discrimination because of certain natural Black hair textures and protective styles, including locs, cornrows, braids, Afros and Bantu knots.
According to CBS, Lieb has submitted a discrimination complaint to New York State’s Division of Human Rights on the family’s behalf. The agency will carry out an investigation and might arbitrate a settlement or conduct a trial.
“The contrast to ‘American’ or ‘normal,’ saying they’re non-normal, non-American — what does that mean?” Lieb said, CBS reported. “And, number two, once the mom explains it to the school, for them to do nothing about it and it happens again implies that they were deliberately indifferent to her complaints.”
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