Background/facts

Clients may have heard of this case recently in the national press.  The College had a uniform policy of prohibiting the “cornrows” hairstyle for all pupils without exception.  A claim was brought arguing that was not only indirect race discrimination as the provision criterion or practice (PCP) affected Afro-Caribbean pupils and staff more than other sections of the community, but also sex discrimination.

Decision/comment

The Court found there was evidence that those from an Afro-Caribbean background (for reasons based on culture and ethnicity) may regard cutting of their hair to be wrong, hence for the need for the hair to be kept in cornrows style.  The Court found that, as such, a blanket policy to refuse that hairstyle was discriminatory and it rejected the school’s arguments that the policy was justified.

On the sex discrimination claim, no sex discrimination was found and the decision reinforced a previous Court of Appeal decision (Smith v Safeway 1996) which, in summary, says that rules concerning appearances that enforce a common principle of smartness or conventionality will not be discriminatory.  A policy looked at as a whole that allowed cornrows for girls but not boys did not necessarily amount to unlawful sex discrimination.

The decision appears to us to be a very sensible one in which the Judge properly weighed the different issues relating to religious discrimination to those relating to sex discrimination.