Dreadlocks Could Cost California Prison Guard His Job

Men with long hair might be hot in Hollywood, but in the offices of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation they are just employees who are breaking the rules. It’s a lesson that one prison guard, Mark Williams, is learning the hard way. Williams, who has worked at the California Institution for Men in Chino for 14 years, says he’s facing disciplinary action after refusing to cut his long dreadlocks despite a policy stating that male employees must wear their hair short enough to sit above their collars. 

More on Shine: Figure Skater Jason Brown's Bronytail Wins Hair Olympics

"Why are we worried about one particular individual who has his hair long?” Williams asks CBS Los Angeles. “What does that have to do with the ability, my ability to do my job? There are other things we can worry about.”

Yahoo Shine could not reach Williams. But Bill Sessa, spokesperson for the California corrections department, tells Yahoo Shine, "He was not threatened with firing. He was told to get a haircut." The dress code there dictates that a male officer cannot have hair that is long enough to go past his shirt collar. Women are allowed to have long hair, although it must be worn in a bun. Sessa notes he is not certain why Williams's hair has only become an issue now, but explains, "The issue is not the dreadlocks, it's simply the length of his hair." The policy is because of safety, he adds, as the officers come into contact with felons, and "a situation can become life threatening in a heartbeat. We don't want to give them something to hold onto, quite frankly." Women having slightly different rules, he notes, is just "a practical acknowledgment that most women don't have male haircuts."

More on Yahoo: 10 Hot Celebrity Men With Long Hair We Need to Discuss

But, Williams says, "My thing is if my hair is up, off my collar, wearing this hat like a female or any person with long hair, what does that have to do with my ability to do my job?” He is currently on a self-imposed administrative leave, according to CBS, until the situation is resolved.

But the guard might not have much to stand on, according to one attorney familiar with the issue. “Employers are allowed to enforce these standards if they qualify as what’s known as a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (‘BFOQ’ )— meaning the dress, hairstyle or even sometimes the employee's ethnic background is ‘reasonably necessary for the normal operation of the particular business,’” Robert Odell, a lawyer with the firm Workplace Justice Advocates in Irvine, California, tells Yahoo Shine in an email. “The male hair length is most likely a safety issue and unlikely to be struck by a court.” While Odell guesses that female prison guards would also be safer with short hair, he also speculates that holding women to such a policy would “likely result in much more push-back from the public.” 

History doesn’t seem to on Williams’s side, at least according to a 1998 case in Florida, in which a U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a Blockbuster Entertainment manager’s decision to fire four men who would not cut their long hair. The company had a “grooming policy” that said only female employees could have long locks, and the employees challenged the policy by arguing that it violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, race, color, national origin and religion. But even the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces Title VII, concluded that court challenges to workplace rules that have different hair-length rules for men and women are “virtually impossible” to win, according to the decision.

However, in 2013, a Virgin Airlines male flight attendant named David Taleski won his job back after being fired for not wearing his hair short enough to comply with the company’s grooming manual. But the turnaround came only after Taleski was able to prove, through medical records, that he was suffering from a form of body dysmorphia that related to the length of his hair — a twist that angered longhaired blogger John James, who frequently writes about hair-length discrimination.

“Body image issues are complex and understandable. But for once, I’d really like to read a story where a man with long hair wins an anti-discrimination case simply because it’s wrong to discriminate against a man who chooses to wear his hair long,” he writes. “I also understand and acknowledge that there are valid reasons why long hair isn’t allowed in some workplaces, especially for safety reasons. All I’m asking is that when there are rules about how people should wear their hair in the workplace, that they are applied equally to both men and women.”

Related:
Tulsa Girl Switches Schools Over Dreadlocks
Change Natural Hairstyle or Get Expelled, School Tells 12-Year-Old Girl