Court slams cornrows ban

Cornrows are cool, says the London High Court.

The court this week ruled that a school's decision to ban hairstyles it claims to be associated with gang culture was "unlawful" and tantamount to "indirect racial discrimination, which is not justified".

The test-case decision is a victory for the family of African-Caribbean teenager G, who wears his hair in cornrow braids as part of a family tradition.

G, who cannot be named, and his mother challenged a refusal by St Gregory's Catholic Science College in north London to let him through the school gates with his braids in September 2009, when he was 11.

G, now 13, who left in tears on his first day, has no intention of returning to the school, despite winning the case.

Justice Collins ruled the hair policy was not unlawful in itself, "but if it is applied without any possibility of exception, such as G, then it is unlawful".

Collins said in future the school must consider allowing other boys to wear cornrows if it is "a genuine family tradition based on cultural and social reasons".

The school had expressed concern that it was serving an area where there was gun and knife crime, much of it gang-related.

Hairstyles could be "badges" of gang identity, it said during the case, while emphasising it did not regard cornrows as necessarily gang-linked.