This autumn I’m about to start my final year of university. All being well, I’ll graduate soon with a BSc in management, and I’ll do so wearing my hair however I choose. That’s not something I thought I would be able say a few years ago. But now, I’m proud to have got my education back on track after years of fighting for the right to go to school while wearing my natural hair.
My battle began when I was 14, in 2016, when teachers first starting telling me my afro hair was “too big”. I was sent home, several times, and with my family behind me I decided to fight the school’s decision, supported by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). We eventually received a settlement, and in 2022 the EHRC issued groundbreaking new guidance to schools in the hope that no child would be discriminated against for having hair that’s associated with their race or ethnicity.
Today is the seventh annual World Afro Day – a day created to give millions of people a focal point of pride, acceptance and liberation for their afro hair – so we should be celebrating that the kind of discrimination I faced no longer happens. Unfortunately, that is not the case. More than seven years after my own battles began, there are still others fighting discrimination in the UK and around the world. Being catapulted into the role of an activist has at times felt overwhelming, but I want to ensure that other children are safeguarded against the prejudice I faced.
I grew up in the borough of Hackney in London, and over the years I was being disciplined at school for my hair, several local politicians and councillors backed my case. Following the legal case concluding, they included us in developing guidance for all schools. Fortunately, other local authorities do not need to write their own guidance or hair policies, because a group called the Halo Collective has done it for them. I had the privilege of being part of the launch of the Halo Code, and now work with them as a freelance campaigns coordinator.
I would like to encourage all schools to mark World Afro Day by reviewing their current hair policy and adopting the Halo Code in time for Black History Month this October.
Many organisations are now raising awareness about hair discrimination, too. In 2020, I featured in Hair Power: Me and My Afro on Channel 4, and the following year I became an official Dove partner and spoke about my experiences at its global summit. Unilever has also adopted the Halo Code for all its staff, and Pantene has pledged to fight hair discrimination.
It’s also good to see politicians taking the issue seriously, with the Liberal Democrats tabling a motion that “hair policies enforced by schools and employers … are an all-too-prevalent form of racial discrimination”, and the government naming the issue as one of its priorities in an Inclusive Britain. In an update published in April this year, it wrote: “Another step towards greater inclusion in schools is ensuring that children – and black pupils in particular – do not face discrimination because of their hair.” That step can’t come soon enough for the students who are still being reprimanded over their braids, or the 93% of black people in the UK who say they have faced microaggressions related to their hair.
Many voices united have led to the very detailed EHRC guidance, but we must be mindful that it is not yet statutory. The Department for Education will not have the power to force a school to follow it, any more than it had the power to help me when I needed it. Making these guidelines law is the only way that schools will be held accountable.
Today, then, I would love schools to look at their hair policies and think about how afro hair grows and is cared for. I’d like them to consider how a line is similar to a parting, how colour in braids is similar to a few blond highlights, and how an afro or locs are similar to shoulder-length European or straight hair. The EHRC guidance and the Halo Code are there to help them. And then, perhaps, on the next World Afro Day, we will no longer have to fight for our right to go to school with the hair textures we were born with, and can spend the day celebrating our beautiful, natural hair.
Ruby Williams is freelance campaigns coordinator at the Halo Collective and a final year BSc student
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