Free Exercise Clause Triumphs—Lafayette School Board Votes to Admit 8 Rastafarian Children with Headgear and Dreadlocks

For immediate release September 21, 2000. Statement by Joe Cook

LAFAYETTE, LA—The Lafayette Parish School Board has seen the Constitutional light shone by the ACLU on the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Based on a lawsuit filed on Monday past, the Board voted 7-1 last evening to enroll eight children from one family, who practice the Rastafarian faith, tradition and belief system. They may wear their head coverings and keep their dreadlocks, as cited from Old Testament scripture. It means attending school without having to choose between their religion and their education. If all goes according to plan, the children will start classes today, after repeated attempts by their parents to enroll them in public schools, since April of this year.

The School Board relented in their zero tolerance for any deviations in an absurd, vague and overbroad dress code: Students may not wear "head-wear ..., except knit caps may be worn in extremely cold weather," and it provides that "hair on male students should not descend below the bottom of the earlobe to touch the top of the collar in the back. No pony tails, pig tails, or extremes in hair styles are permitted." The agreement calls for the children to wear loose fitting head coverings in school colors of navy blue, white or khaki and to check into the principal’s office each morning for "security purposes." They had always agreed to wear the approved school uniforms.

Trial attorney David Benoit of Breaux Bridge said, "District Judge Rebecca Doherty came fully prepared in knowing the issues and the applicable law. I commend her in upholding the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. That brought school officials around to a reasonable position of accommodation. It allows the children to attend public school, where they can get an education and learn how to participate in a government of, by and for the people, including Rastafarians."

Louisiana ACLU Executive Director Joe Cook goes on to say, "The Bill of Rights has won again in its role to protect individual liberty from the tyranny of the majority. School officials finally saw the constitutional light with the help of a federal judge and legal precedents set in place over decades past. All of us owe a debt of gratitude to these plaintiffs and numerous others who have dared to speak truth to power in the exercise of their individual rights."

Despite criticisms to the contrary, the ACLU, as in the instant case, stands up just as strongly for the Free Exercise Clause as for the Establishment Clause. Government actions specifically directed at religion that burden an individual’s free exercise of religion can only be sustained, if they are narrowly tailored to a compelling state interest. At the same time, we refuse to allow the use of state machinery for the advancement of religion, which some people on the religious right wing have as their agenda. The Rastafarians did not and do not seek to use the intercom, a football game or any school sponsored event to promote their faith.

The ACLU expresses its appreciation to Mr. Benoit and the two other private cooperating attorneys in this case—Eugene Thomas and Marjorie Esman of New Orleans. They did a terrific job of research, writing and bringing this case before the court for a victorious outcome of getting the children in school.