Barber v. Colorado Independent School District

The majority summarily dismisses Austin David Barber’s constitutional claims without the benefit of legal analysis and fails to find that CISD’s hair-length regulation implicates the Texas Equal Rights Amendment. It is wrong for several reasons.

First, Barber pleaded his case exclusively on state constitutional grounds. He brought this suit against CISD because the high school’s “hair code” restrictions, which apply only to male students, violated his constitutionally protected rights of privacy and symbolic speech, and freedom from gender discrimination under the Texas ERA. (Although Barber’s…