Breese Ex Rel. Breese v. Smith

OPINION

RABINOWITZ, Justice.

This appeal requires that we resolve a hair length controversy arising from the enforcement of a junior high school grooming regulation. If the regulation in the case at bar is upheld, the student will be denied a public education unless he conforms his hair style to the regulation’s standards.

Michael Breese enrolled in the seventh grade class at Main Junior High School in Fairbanks on September 13, 1971, shortly after the fall term had begun. Some three years prior thereto, Elmer C. Smith, principal of Main, had promulgated an unwritten hair regulation which…