First Amendment Rights in Charter Schools?
This is interesting. You may have heard of this issue of a little girl enrolled in a charter school in Tulsa, Oklahoma was sent home because she came to school with dreadlocks and they have a policy against "faddish hair styled" that includes dreadlocks. Her father pulled from the school. Her new school has no problem with her hair and that school is a regular public one. (As an aside, the issue of hair is a particularly sensitive one for African-Americans. In fact, comic Chris Rock made a documentary, Good Hair, about this issue because of his concerns for his own daughters. When he went on Oprah, it was one of the most illuminating shows she ever had.) But what this article in Ed Week points out is not whether a charter school can have a dress code - any school can - but could this little girl's First Amendment right have been violated? More to the point, are charters really public schools where students have First Amendment rights? ...