THE CASH STUFF FOR MARCH 21, 2024

WAKE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

CONSIDERS IMPLEMENTING

CROWN ACT PROTECTIONS

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

If there is one thing Black students are proud of is their ability to self-express their cultural identity through varying hairstyles. But there have been times when school personnel who don’t share the same need for cultural identity or expression have punished those students for violating a school district’s dress or grooming code.

In Wake County, the Board of Education’s Policy Committee has begun exploring how to allow students to express their race-based “individuality and culture” through their hairstyles by modifying the school system’s dress policy, and adopting the Crown Act.

The proposed Wake policy language, if adopted by the entire Wake School Board,  reads, “Students may dress and style their hair for school in a manner that expresses their individuality and culture, including length, braids, locs, twists, tight coils or curls, cornrows, Bantu knots, afros, geles and headwraps.”

The committee also wants the proposed student’s freedom of hairstyle cultural expression policy to fall under an anti-bullying protective policy as well.

“Crown” stands for “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” and is part of a national movement to adopt such protections, primarily in the workplace.

According to published reports, more than 20% of Black women, ages 25 to 34 in the workplace have been sent home because of cultural discrimination pertaining to their hairstyles.

Not yet a state or federal law, the Crown Act is designed to prevent hairstyle discrimination in the workplace, and even in schools. Crown Act protections are already in force in Durham Public Schools, as well as Wake, Durham and Orange and Mecklenburg county governments.

Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro and Carrboro city governments have adopted Crown Act protections as well.

A bill to make the Crown Act state law was introduced in the NC House in February 2023 were it passed, and then sent to the state Senate, where it has stalled.

In Wake County Schools, proponents believe Crown Act protections would help Black students particularly, maintain a pride about themselves and appearances.

"This is really about creating a culture in our district where we are telling students from a strength-based approach of what we believe and also how we believe in them,” Wake School Board Vice Chair Monika Johnson-Hostler told the Raleigh News & Observer.

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VOTER ID LAWSUIT TRIAL

TO FINALLY START MAY 6TH

By Cash Michels

Contributing writer

After a five-year delay, and with North Carolina elections already using it, a federal trial on the constitutionality of voter I.D. has been ordered to begin on May 6th. It will be a bench trial with no jury.

Federal Justice Loretta Biggs, an African-American, issued the order March 13th, denying a 2021 motion by the NC State Board of Elections for a summary judgment.

“State Board Defendants argue that Plaintiffs’ evidence does not show discriminatory intent…., Judge Biggs wrote. “Plaintiffs argue that there is more than sufficient evidence in the record for each factor to defeat summary judgment with respect to discriminatory intent. Plaintiffs are correct, at least with respect to the historical background and whether S.B. 824 bears more heavily on one race than another or its impact.”

Senate Bill (S.B.) 824 is the 2018 voter I.D. law plaintiffs are suing to stop, alleging that it was racially discriminatory. State lawmakers in the Republican-led NC General Assembly quickly passed the measure after voters ratified a Constitutional amendment mandating voter I.D. become law.

But plaintiffs allege that given North Carolina’s history of racial discrimination, and especially the racial bias the courts found in the passage of the 2013 voter I.D. law before knocking that down, this 2018 legislation was no different, and should be declared unconstitutional as well.

“Assessing whether Plaintiffs have shown that racial discrimination was a substantial or motivating factor behind enactment of S.B. 824 is fact-intensive, and at this stage, the Court cannot weigh the evidence or make credibility determinations,” Judge Biggs wrote. “Even after affording the state legislature a presumption of good faith, in light of the evidence in the record on the historical background and impact of S.B. 824, State Board Defendants have failed to show that there is an absence of evidence to support that racial discrimination was a ‘substantial’ or ‘motivating’ factor behind the enactment of S.B. 824.”

“Should Plaintiffs succeed in showing discriminatory intent, the burden would then shift to State Board Defendants to show that S.B. 824 would have been enacted without racial discrimination.” Biggs continued.

Even though the state Board of Elections are the defendants in the case, Republican legislative leaders have also been allowed to file motions in defense of the 2018 voter I.D. law, thanks to a June 2022 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. The five-year delay in going to trial is the result of several appeals that needed to be heard and determined in the case.

Judge Biggs also wrote that she saw things in the 2018 voter I.D. law that raised concerns in her mind.

"There is sufficient evidence in the record to suggest an inequality in the opportunities enjoyed by non-white and white voters to elect their preferred representatives,” she wrote.

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