Plaintiff Katrina Wood brought this action on behalf of her fourteen-year old son, Neale Wood, against Alamo Heights Independent School District, its Superintendent and Board of Trustees, and the Principal of Alamo Heights High School, sеeking an injunction and damages for suspension of the minor plaintiff from school because the length of his hair did not conform to the standards prescribed by the school. Plaintiff alleges the First and Fourteenth Amendments are violatеd by enforcement of the school’s rules, and that jurisdiction is based on the Civil Rights Act, Title 42 U.S.C. sec. 1981 et seq.
Plaintiff sought a temporary restraining order, which this Court denied after a hearing at which plaintiff Katrina Wood and school officials tеstified, and affidavits of the minor plaintiff and plaintiff Katrina Wood were considered.
Upon hearing plaintiffs’ application for temporary injunction and defend *552 ants’ motion to dismiss, which is here treated as a motion for summary judgment, 1 it is determined that the defendants’ motion to dismiss should be granted and that plaintiffs’ motion for temporary injunction should be denied.
The evidence was that the Alamo Heights High School for some time has had a written dress and grooming code for its students. When plaintiff Neale Wood started his freshman high school term and at the time suit was filed, the school’s code provided:
“The following guides are designed to insure appropriateness of student dress for school, yet рermitting as much freedom of choice as possible for students to keep in style * * * Hair should be neat, clean, and well-groomed, and the length should not be over the eye brows, collar or ears. Sideburns will be permitted to the рoint where the lower part of the ear is attached, but must be straight and kept trimmed. No ‘mutton chop’ styles are permitted. Beards, mustaches, and other expressive male styles are disapproved.”
Testimony showed that before promulgating the present student grooming regulations, the school administration sought the recommendations of a committee of students representing all facets of student life and adopted in large part the reсommendations of this student committee. In addition, school officials sought and received the advice and counsel of fashion and grooming experts on the subject of new hair and dress styles of students. The record further shows that thе school’s grooming regulations have been changed from time to time, as reflected by testimony to the effect that only a short time ago the regulation fixing the length of side burns was amended when the attention of school administrators was called to the fact that longer side burns had become the accepted style, and just recently the school’s regulations were modified to permit girls at the school to wear slacks.
Under the circumstances, it is indeed difficult to see how the school could have been any more considerate of its students, and still meet its responsibilities in maintaining order and implementing the educational program of the school. Insofar as this Court hаs been able to determine, there is no other reported case in which the school authorities have allowed the students themselves to become such an integral part of the decision-making process with resрect to grooming regulations.
Aside from the testimony showing the lack of an arbitrary or capricious spirit in adopting the rules of the school, the record establishes that the grooming regulations are reasonably necеssary to insure the effective operation of the school and promote the discipline and decorum of its students. There was some evidence that “borderline” hair styles had not created incidents at the school, but even if this is true it would not compel a conclusion that the regulation is unreasonable. More than ample testimony was presented to the effect that extreme hair styles may, and probably would, be a disrupting influence on a student body which does not wear them. Certainly school officials are not forbidden to take steps necessary to prevent that which they have good reason to believe would otherwise result in a breakdown of school discipline.
Under Texas law (Wilson v. Abilene Independent School District,
In deciding this type of case, the Fifth Circuit, in Ferrell v. Dallas Independent School District,
“The decided cases clearly demonstrate that each case must be decided in its own particular setting and faсtual background and within the context of the entire record before the Court in determining whether the rule or the action about which complaint is made is arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable or discriminatory. * * * ”
Where the entire record, as here, shows the regulation to be reasonably necessary to insure the efficient and effective operation of the school, and promote the discipline or decorum of its students, the regulation is valid.
In noting the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Ferrell, the Supreme Court, in deciding a case involving a school’s prohibition against students wearing arm bands to protest the Vietnam war, stated:
“The problem posed by the present case does not relate to regulаtion of the length of skirts or the type of clothing, to hair style, or deportment. Cf. Ferrell v. Dallas Independent School District,392 F.2d 697 (1968); Pugsley v. Sellmeyer,158 Ark. 247 ,250 S.W. 538 ,30 A.L.R. 1212 (1923). It does not concern aggressive, disruptive action or even group demonstrations. Our problem involvеs direct, primary First Amendment rights akin to ‘pure speech.’ * * * this case does not concern speech or action that intrudes upon the work of the schools or the rights of other students.” Tinker v. Des Moines Community School District,393 U.S. 503 ,89 S.Ct. 733 ,21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969).
The decision in
Ferrell
has been recently followed in Davis v. Firment,
“The predominant interest of a school is to educate its students. If a particular type of conduct has the effect of disrupting the learning atmosphere, it should be subject to rеgulation.”269 F.Supp. 524 .
Plaintiffs have relied upon decisions from other circuits and upon Griffin v. Tatum,
In Griffin v. Tatum the court found the school’s justification for the hair cut regulation lacking in sufficient relation to school requirements of appropriаte discipline, and held the regulation to be an arbitrary and unreasonable classification. In the case at bar more than an “undefined fear or apprehension of disturbance” has been shown. Experienced sсhool administrators and teachers testified that extremes in hair style have in the past created classroom distractions and disturbances, and their opinions that lack of reasonable limits for student grooming would substantially affect discipline and decorum are not without reasonable basis. And in Griffin there was no student participation in arriving at the school grooming rules, a factor which, in the present case, seems to demonstrate the reasоnable and considerate approach taken by the school administrators.
Zachry v. Brown and Calbillo v. San Jacinto Junior College involved grooming regulations applied to college students. In the first place, it would аppear that considerations of discipline and decorum for high school students, such as the fourteen-year old plaintiff here, and those for college students are quite different. In addition,
Ferrell,
In Calbillo v. San Jacinto Junior College the regulation of the college was shown by the evidence to have been “enacted to implement the personal distaste of certain school offiсials for beards and certain hair styles and for the beliefs and attitudes which they thought these beards and hair styles represented.”. As in Zachry, therefore, no relation to discipline or the efficient teaching process was shown.
Upon Breen v. Kahl,
Richards v. Thurston,
This Court’s sentiments were well expressed by Judge Lawrence in the case of Stevenson v. Wheeler County Board of Education,
“Among the things a student is supposed to learn at school (at least such is my idea) is a sense of disсipline. Of course, rules cannot be made by authorities for the sake of making them but they should possess considerable leeway in promulgating regulations for the proper conduct of students. Courts should uphold them where therе is any rational basis for the questioned rule. All that is necessary is a reasonable connection of the rule with the proper operation of the schools. By accepting an education at public expеnse pupils at the elementary or high school level subject themselves to considerable discretion on the part of school authorities as to the manner in which they deport themselves. Those who run public schools should be the judges in such matters, not the courts. The quicker judges get out of the business of running schools the better. * * * Except in extreme cases the judgment of school officials should be final in applying a regulation to an individual casе.”
The defendants’ motion to dismiss, which is treated herein as a motion for summary judgment, is granted, and plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary injunction is denied.
The foregoing shall constitute findings of fact and conclusions of law.
Notes
. Rules 12(b), 56, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; Davis v. Firment,