Outside of picture day, hair is something many people can go for long periods without thinking about. Still, studies show that Black Americans experience hair discrimination from the classroom to the workplace, meaning negative bias manifested toward Black natural or textured hairstyles.
Sometimes, this could mean braids, locs, and kinky hair being deemed “unprofessional.” Other times, it takes shape in suspensions given to children for wearing culturally meaningful hairstyles. To combat this, legislators in the commonwealth and D.C. are lobbying for the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act, aka the CROWN Act, a law that would prohibit the denial of professional and or educational opportunities based on hair text and protective styles.
Since the law was first introduced and ultimately passed in California in 2019, 27 states including Texas and Maryland have followed suit in protecting what experts say is a form of cultural expression. Lawmakers had previously attempted to make the CROWN Act the law of the land in the Keystone State, but, ultimately, the legislation didn’t make it out of the House. This time around, with the CROWN Act out of the House State Government Committee, and having secured a second consideration vote in February 2025 with bipartisan support, U.S. Rep. La’Tasha Mayes (D-Pa. 24) is feeling optimistic about the legislation’s future.
“There’s great momentum with the CROWN Act. It was actually one of the first bills that moved as we returned to the house in February,” Mayes says. “We had an almost unanimous vote out of the state government committee. Then, in second consideration, we had a unanimous vote. The CROWN Act will be coming to the floor for final passage when we return to session in the next two weeks.”
( Editors Note: On March 17, shortly before press time, the CROWN Act passed the Pa. House 194-8.)
Recalling her days as a community organizer, Mayes tells Pittsburgh City Paper that for years, she participated in conversations among Black women and within the Black community about how Black hair is often policed. To try and get her colleagues to understand the stakes, Mayes says, she often poses the question of how they would feel if they knew, at any given moment, that their hair’s natural state could become a liability.
“I’ve had to ask them, ‘have you ever been barred from an economic opportunity because of this? Have you ever been humiliated in a public space because of what your hair looks like?’ And of course, the answer is no,” Mayes says. “How your hair naturally grows out of your head … should not result in any form of discrimination.”
Through the CROWN Act’s journey, Mayes has been able to garner support for the legislation across the aisle amongst two Republican legislators, one of whom is raising Black daughters. In conversations with colleagues, Mayes says they’ve stressed that the conversion around hair discrimination isn’t “frivolous” due to the significance hair holds for Black people.
“Hair is a part of the cultural pride of Black people,” Mayes says. “That shouldn’t be repressed because an employer may not understand — or isn’t willing — to make a very simple accommodation for a Black person to be able to wear their hair as it naturally grows.”
Should it pass, the CROWN Act would amend Pennsylvania’s Human Relations Act to prohibit discrimination based on a person’s hair type, while giving the Human Relations Commission more staffing to take on more cases related to hair-based discrimination.
Although the CROWN Act itself is only a few years old, University of Pittsburgh program and research manager Monica Henderson says pushback to hair discrimination can be traced back to the 1970s in the form of advocacy, lawsuits, and demands for justice. However, in the absence of laws that considered hair a part of racial discrimination, Henderson says that back then, it was an uphill battle. Having previously testified in support of the CROWN Act’s passage in Massachusetts, Henderson explains that Black hair itself is not a problem; however, the negative way that people can react to it creates a variety of stressors in an already marginalized community.
“Black hair is artistic, it’s beautiful, it’s whatever somebody wants it to be,” Henderson says. “But the way hair is valued [or not] has caused traumatic experiences in healthcare, or it has led to inaccurate testing in healthcare, [and] toxic chemicals in hair products have been linked to cancers, and again, that disproportionately impacts Black individuals.”
According to a 2020 study, Black women with natural hairstyles are less likely to land job interviews than white women or Black women with straightened hair. As of 2019, research shows that Black women are 1.5 times more likely to be sent home from the workplace because of their hair. In her capacity as a social scientist, Henderson says she’d prefer it if Black hair was allowed to be just hair, yet data shows that the politics of Black hair significantly impact various aspects of life.
“We don’t have autonomy over our hair choices as much as we should, and haven’t since enslavement,” Henderson says. “The CROWN Act is just a way for us to have a legal safeguard to fall back on when we have no one else to turn to because of how we’re treated on our hair because hair is not just hair right now — our hair choices are dictated by Eurocentric and white beauty ideals.”
At the national level, U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa. 12) is one of six legislators reintroducing the CROWN Act in the House of Representatives while U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) introduced similar legislation in the Senate. If passed, the legislation would provide research to Congress supporting the necessity of prohibiting hair discrimination. Not only that, but having originally introduced the legislation at the state level alongside the Speaker of the Pa. House Joanna McClinton, (D-Philadelphia), Lee says that the CROWN Act would further protect Black Americans from discrimination when inclusion is under attack.
“Theoretically, it would end one of the lasting vestiges of anti-Blackness in this country and anti-Black discrimination in this country,” Lee says. “When we think about the opportunities that we are owed as American citizens … we are still not scratching the surface on ensuring that everybody has access to them. We’re not scratching the surface on ensuring that Black and brown students are not just comfortable, but accepted.”
From where Lee stands, requiring Black Americans to alter a cultural aspect of their appearances or face accusations of insubordination is another barrier to obtaining education and job opportunities. By supporting this legislation, Lee says, lawmakers would be doing their part to ensure that the United States lives up to its promise to treat its citizens equitably.
“We shouldn’t have to worry about being made to feel lesser than [or] ugly or inferior, because this is how we are. This is who we are,” Lee says. “This would be akin to saying that we would not allow young white girls to come to school if their hair isn’t in an afro if they don’t chemically alter their hair … We wouldn’t do that to other cultures, and we shouldn’t do it to ours.”
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2025.
