The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) will welcome a Texas student who was suspended for his hair to President Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday.

Darryl George, a Black student at Barbers Hill High School in Mount Belvieu, has spent months serving in-school suspension for refusing to cut his locs. Though the school says George’s hair is in violation of its policy, George and his family have argued the policy violates the state’s CROWN Act, which went into effect last September.

The CROWN Act is intended to ban discrimination based on natural hair textures and styles. {snip}

“There is no sound justification for the way the Barbers Hill Independent School District is treating Darryl George,” said Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), chair of the CBC.

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Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), the lead primary sponsor for a federal CROWN Act, said the treatment George has experienced over the last six months is indicative of why Congress must pass a federal CROWN Act.

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