holding that at the college level, unlike the high school level, an adult's constitutional right to wear his hair as he chooses supersedes the state’s right to intrude by imposing an "appearance code” on would-be junior college students
How later courts described this case
- holding that at the college level, unlike the high school level, an adult's constitutional right to wear his hair as he chooses supersedes the state’s right to intrude by imposing an "appearance code” on would-be junior college students
- adopting presumption that state’s interests in education and educational environment did not rationally justify hair-length regulation at junior college, although under Karr v. Schmidt, 460 F.2d 609 (5th Cir. 1972) (en banc), those interests presumptively could rationally justify dress and grooming regulations in high schools
- disapproving enforcement of a junior hair length case. The only thing about college's grooming code and stating, “the place where the line it that borders on the serious to me of permissible hairstyle regulation is drawn is between the is the idea that anyone should think high school door and the college gate”
- holding that at the college level such interests are not sufficient to warrant a similar intrusion on the liberty interests of college students
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge
(concurring) :
I concur in the result and in much of Judge Clark’s able opinion. I would join also in Judge Wisdom’s concurrence and all of that of Judge Simpson’s save where he embraces completely Judge Tuttle’s concurrence in Sherling v. Townley, 5 Cir., 1972, 464 F.2d 587 which, to me, in a reverse way is subject to the same deficiency as Karr with its per se rule — one for, one against hair restrictions.
I think Judge Clark for the Court has bravely revealed the shortcomings of our vaunted case-and-controversy system with its insatiable demand for record facts. As he wisely points out, when all is said and done, these decisions' do not —and it would be a dangerous thing if they did — turn on the presence or absence of word testimony from administrators, school boards, freedom militants or variations in between as to the consequences in order, discipline, learning environment and the like flowing from the cosmetic factor of hair. For this testimony — pro and con — is freely available with none of the restraints of perjury, and in the last analysis the Judge picks and chooses, not because one is more, or less, creditable than the other, but simply because the one rather than the other comes closest to the Judge’s notion of what the law demands or tolerates.
Indeed, except for one limited dissent in Karr, the position of the majority was not on the factual record. It was on the idea that the state could regulate, with no indicated justification, the length of hair.
This is no apologia for the system. It is a recognition of fact. And for a calling already full of its own myths and the expectation that our Commission somehow invests us with a prescience given to no other men, it is good for us to acknowledge our limitations and the occasional inadequacy of our system to honestly articulate the distinctions in judgment.
My slight difference is that while recognizing these influences leading Judges to decision, it seems a contradiction to cast it in terms of per se. For by sheer numbers, that is to aggregate the individualized judicial hunches into something that, genie-like, is a principle of law. See Hutcheson, The Judgment Intuitive: The Function of the “Hunch” in Judicial Decisions, 1929, 14 Corn.L. Q. 274. Except for this I concur in the opinion and certainly the result.