Barber v. Colorado Independent School District

901 S.W.2d 447, 58 A.L.R. 5th 799, 38 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 902, 1995 Tex. LEXIS 111, 1995 WL 371214

• Court: Texas Supreme Court
• Decided: June 22, 1995
• Docket: 94-0054
• Status: Published

Opinions

GONZALEZ, Justice

delivered the opinion of the Court,

in which PHILLIPS, Chief Justice, and HIGHTOWER, HECHT, CORNYN, ENOCH and OWEN, Justices, join.

This is a class action challenging the legality under the state constitution of hair length and earrings restrictions imposed by Colorado Independent School District (CISD) upon its male high school students. The trial court held that CISD’s grooming code violated the Texas Constitution and granted a permanent injunction against the school district, prohibiting enforcement of the regulations. The court of appeals reversed the judgment of the trial court, holding that judicial intervention was inappropriate in this case. 864 S.W.2d 806. We refuse to use the Texas Constitution to micro-manage Texas high schools. Therefore, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.

In 1992, Austin Barber was an eighteen-year-old high school senior in Colorado City, Texas. CISD’s school rules included the following regulation:

The District’s dress code is established to teach grooming and hygiene, instill discipline, prevent disruption, avoid safety hazards, and teach respect for authority.

Boys may wear hair to the bottom of the collar, the bottom of the ear and combed out of the eyes. Boys may not wear earrings of any kind. Caps and hats not a part of women’s formal attire may not be worn in the building. Sudden, unbecoming fashions or anything designed to attract undue attention to the individual or activities are not acceptable. These guidelines are subject to administrative discretion. Extra-curricular organizations may impose a more stringent dress code.

(Emphasis added.) Barber and his family had a contrary view about whether he was required to observe CISD’s grooming policy. They notified the school board that Barber had reached the age of majority and requested that CISD suspend enforcement of the grooming regulation as to him and other students aged eighteen and over. They stated that the regulation’s restrictions for males regarding hair length and earrings violated Barber’s fundamental constitutional rights because the policy did not apply to female students. They concluded that if CISD did not exempt Barber and other adult males from the regulation, they were going to sue. By a 4-to-2 vote, the CISD board members refused to suspend enforcement of the regulation.

Consequently, with the assistance of his father, an attorney, Barber brought a class action against CISD to enjoin its enforcement of the regulation. Barber challenged the constitutionality of CISD’s dress code regulation as it pertains to adult male students. Over CISD’s objections, the trial court certified the class as all male students attending CISD schools who were eighteen years of age at the time of suit and in the future. Over CISD’s objections, the trial court designated Barber the class representative. The ease was tried to the court without the benefit of a jury. A summary of the evidence presented at trial follows.

O’Henry Young testified that he has been an attorney for thirty years and has served as a member of the Abilene Independent School Board for many years. He compared Abilene ISD grooming and dress codes to CISD’s and stated that Abilene ISD chose to “get out of the hair business,” in part because the school board was unsure whether it could legally regulate this area. He did not think that CISD’s regulation served a useful purpose.

Gary Paterson, the principal of Snyder High School, testified that Snyder ISD did not have a specific rule regarding hair length for the general student population. (It did have a rule that boys could not wear earrings.) For boys in sports, Snyder ISD gave coaches the authority to set standards about the hair length of boys on their teams. Snyder ISD also regulated skirt lengths for girls. Paterson testified that if a boy showed up in school in a dress, he would be presumed disruptive and be asked to change his attire. He did not think that it would be wise to have a different standard for students merely because they were eighteen years old.

Joe Marlett, principal of Sweetwater High School, testified that his school board did not regulate boys’ hair length but distinguished between the sexes as to earrings. Boys could wear a stud but not dangling earrings; girls could wear dangling earrings. As to the disparity of rules between the different school districts, Marlett testified that “local policy would govern what is best for their particular school district” and that each school district’s regulations represent the societal values of a particular locale. He added that what may be appropriate and in good taste in one district may not be in another.

Raymond Hollis, the superintendent of schools at Westbrook ISD, testified that although his schools’ grooming rules do not mention hair length, none of the boys in his schools had hair longer than their collars. Westbrook ISD’s grooming rules require that girls’ skirts not be shorter than the top of the knee. Hollis indicated that arbitrary rules for hair length and earrings were an important teaching device, which would instill discipline in students by teaching them that there are consequences for not following rules.

James McSwain, the high school principal of CISD, testified about the grooming code in question and about the consequences when a student did not follow the rules. In the high school, about twenty-five or thirty male students had been asked to cut their hair, and only two were suspended from school. McSwain testified that the grooming regulation was the result of “a collaborative effort between community and faculty and students.” Ultimately the seven-person school board formulated the policies. McSwain opined that there was a compelling reason for the grooming rules, stating that:

[A] student must comply substantially with the rules of an institution. School has to have rules, obviously, to carry out its business. I think that is part of our responsibility to educate kids. I think it is an educational tool to teach compliance with rules, and that is an integral part of society and is a part of our responsibility to teach students that they must comply with rules even if they don’t agree with the rule.

McSwain added that Barber was in a “home-bound” program due to knee surgery, and that he attended classes at school part of the time, but that most of his school work was done at home.

Barber testified that he cut his hair to appear in a community theater play; that he has never served in-school suspension time due to the length of his hair; that because school administrators threatened him twice with in-school suspension because of the length of his hair, he got it cut; and that he had served in-school suspension time twice during his sophomore year (once for leaving school without signing out and once for being tardy four times to his first period class). Barber testified that he brought the lawsuit for the following reasons:

Because I don’t feel that four members of a School Board should be able to dictate to an adult student matters of hairstyle, which to me is an expression of individualism and personal freedom. I would like to be free from sexual discrimination.

He also questioned the utility of the hair length and earrings restrictions for males, particularly since they did not apply equally to females. Barber concluded that he wanted to decide for himself the length of his hair and whether and when to wear an earring.

Dwayne Harris, a farmer and member of the CISD school board, testified that the district’s grooming regulation corresponds to community values.

Pat Barber, the plaintiff’s father who represented his son in this lawsuit, and another attorney testified as to attorney fees.

The foregoing testimony was the sum total of Barber’s case.

The defendant, CISD, elicited the testimony of Dr. Edwin Headrick, a professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University. The professor testified that now, more than ever, due to the breakdown of the family, it is important that schools teach students how to live in society. He explained that rules such as the grooming regulation at issue are one way to teach students discipline and respect for authority, as well as personal grooming and hygiene. Headrick stated that rules differ with the community standards of each locale, and that students need to learn how to comply with rules of which they do not approve. He concluded that CISD’s grooming rules were an important part of the educational process.

The trial court held that the hair and earrings provisions of CISD’s grooming code violated the state Equal Rights Amendment, Tex Const, art. I, § 3a, and the constitutional rights to freedom of expression, to an education, and to privacy. It issued an injunction against CISD to prohibit the district from enforcing the regulation as to its adult male students. The trial court also awarded Barber $13,600 in attorneys’ fees. The court of appeals reversed and rendered a take-nothing judgment against Barber. 864 S.W.2d at 808. It held that Barber’s cause of action did not justify judicial intervention in CISD’s enforcement of the grooming code. Id. at 807.

The trial court rendered judgment solely on the Equal Rights Amendment, Tex Const, art. I, § 3a. It filed findings of fact and conclusions of law. The finding of fact most relevant to the ultimate issue is as follows:

C.LS.D.’s dress and grooming code objectives, enumerated above, may be accomplished by many reasonable means other than the gender-based discrimination expressed in said regulations. All of the credible testimony and other credible evidence establishes that said regulations are not reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of said objectives, and any evidence to the contrary is specifically found to be not credible.

The finding is one of mixed law and fact, and we are obliged to decide de novo the issues of law. See generally Richards v. League of United Latin Am. Citizens, 868 S.W.2d 306, 310-12 (Tex.1993).

Barber’s claims do not manifest such an affront to his constitutional rights as to merit our intervention in this case. See Ferrell v. Dallas Ind. Sch. Dist., 392 F.2d 697, 702-04 (6th Cir.1968) (finding that a school district’s high school grooming code did not violate the state or federal constitution). The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has a bright line rule for federal district courts in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi to apply in these matters. The Fifth Circuit differentiates between college and high school settings. Compare Karr v. Schmidt, 460 F.2d 609, 611 (5th Cir.1972) (stating that a high school student’s “asserted right to be free of school regulations governing the length of his hair is one that is not cognizable in federal courts”), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 989, 93 S.Ct. 307, 34 L.Ed.2d 256 (1972), with Lansdale v. Tyler Junior College, 470 F.2d 659, 663 (5th Cir.1972) (en banc) (disapproving enforcement of a junior college’s grooming code and stating, “the place where the line of permissible hairstyle regulation is drawn is between the high school door and the college gate”), cert. denied, 411 U.S. 986, 93 S.Ct. 2268, 36 L.Ed.2d 964 (1973). It concludes that at the college level, a school’s asserted educational and disciplinary needs do not justify grooming codes absent exceptional circumstances.

Because the constitutional rights of students in public high schools are not coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings, see New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 339, 105 S.Ct. 733, 741-42, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985) (easing Fourth Amendment requirements to balance a student’s rights against school officials’ substantial interest in maintaining discipline), we agree with the Fifth Circuit’s sensible approach when reviewing grooming codes in high schools.

It is a matter of common sense that the state judiciary is less competent to deal with students’ hair length than a parent, school board, administrator, principal, or teacher. A similar case arose more than twenty years ago in El Paso, Texas, and the Fifth Circuit drew a similar conclusion with regard to the federal judiciary. In Karr, the court noted:

There can, of course, be honest differences of opinion as to whether any government, state or federal, should as a matter of public policy regulate the length of haircuts, but it would be difficult to prove by reason, logic, or common sense that the federal judiciary is more competent to deal with hair length than are the local school authorities and state legislatures of all our 50 States.

460 F.2d at 611.

Mr. Justice Black, in denying the stay of an injunction that would have barred the El Paso school authorities from enforcing the grooming policy, wrote words that ring true today:

[T]he record ... [is] calculated to leave the impression that this case over the length of hair has created or is about to create a great national “crisis.” I confess my inability to understand how anyone would thus classify this hair length case. The only thing about it that borders on the serious to me is the idea that anyone should think the Federal Constitution imposes on the United States courts the burden of supervising the length of hair that public school students should wear.

Karr v. Schmidt, 401 U.S. 1201, 1202-03, 91 S.Ct. 592, 593, 27 L.Ed.2d 797 (1971). This statement is no less applicable to the Texas Constitution and state courts.

In Mercer v. Board of Trustees, 538 S.W.2d 201, 206 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1976, writ refd n.r.e.), a high school student challenged a school grooming regulation similar to CISD’s under the state Equal Rights Amendment, and sought to enjoin enforcement of the regulation. After obtaining no relief in the trial court, he appealed to the court of appeals which refused to intervene. That court noted that elementary and high school students:

are in a formative period of their lives wherein their values are being established by parents, church, and school. All may reasonably establish rules of conduct arising out of the relationship without intervention of the courts.

Id. at 206. The student in Mercer appealed to this Court. Without issuing an opinion, we also refused to intervene. We subsequently cited Mercer with approval in Eanes Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Logue, 712 S.W.2d 741, 742 (Tex.1986), in which we directed a trial judge to rescind an order affecting how three high schools conducted their extracurricular sports programs.

Although minors have constitutional rights, they do not have the same constitutional rights as adults. See, e.g., In re J.T.H., 779 S.W.2d 954, 956 (Tex.App.—Austin 1989, no writ) (holding that a statute allowing the imprisonment of juveniles without presenting an indictment was valid under the state and federal constitutions); Strange v. State, 616 S.W.2d 951, 953 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1981, no writ) (holding that minors do not have a constitutional right to a jury trial in the adjudicative stage of a juvenile proceeding); Diamond, The First Amendment and Public Schools: The Case Against Judicial Intervention, 59 Tex.L.Rev. 477, 489 (1981) (discussing McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528, 91 S.Ct. 1976, 29 L.Ed.2d 647 (1971), which held that minors do not have the right to a jury trial in criminal proceedings against them). In Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622, 99 S.Ct. 3035, 61 L.Ed.2d 797 (1979), the United States Supreme Court explained the purpose for the distinction between the constitutional rights of minors and adults as follows:

We have recognized three reasons justifying the conclusion that the constitutional rights of children cannot be equated with those of adults: the peculiar vulnerability of children; their inability to make critical decisions in an informed, mature manner; and the importance of the parental role in child-rearing.

Id. at 634, 99 S.Ct. at 3043 (plurality opinion). Consequently, the state has more control over the conduct of minors than it does over adults. Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 638, 88 S.Ct. 1274, 1280, 20 L.Ed.2d 195 (1967) (quoting Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 170, 64 S.Ct. 438, 444, 88 L.Ed. 645 (1944)).

For all of these reasons, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.