Florida School Denied 6-Year-Old Entry Because of Dreadlocks, Father Says

The father of a 6-year-old boy in Florida says a private Christian school would not allow his son to attend if the boy did not cut off his dreadlocks, according to the Miami Herald. Clinton Stanley Sr. posted a video of his conversation with officials at A Book’s Christian Academy on Facebook after his son showed up on the first day of school with hair that apparently violated the dress code. “Our son just got told he could not attend the school with his hair,” Stanley Sr. said in the video. “If that’s not biased, I don’t know what is.” The school claimed that the boy, Clinton Stanley Jr., wasn’t denied entry to the school because of his race but due to a “long-standing” code that requires boys to have a “tapered cut, off the collar and ears.” School director John Book told a local TV station that he was “not a racist” because “95 percent” of the school was black and that the rules were in place to “uphold certain biblical standards.” Stanley Sr. told the Orlando Sentinel that the school’s rules weren’t right. “Allow kids to come as they are. You are a Christian school,” he said. “In the Bible it says come as you are… You deny a kid an education on his hair?” According to his father, Clinton Stanley Jr. is now enrolled in another school.