Credit: (AP Photo/Kathleen Ronayne)The Biden administration announced its support for U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman’s CROWN Act on Tuesday, just weeks after the bill failed to pass in the House due to a lack of Republican votes.
The CROWN Act, or Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act, was introduced to both chambers of Congress by Watson Coleman (D-12th) and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) in 2021. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Fair Housing Act and other laws, the bill would make it a federal crime to discriminate against someone wearing hairstyles associated with the Black community. These include Afros, braids, cornrows, locs and other styles.
The bill was first brought to Congress in 2019 by Booker, the year after referee Alan Maloney told Buena High School student Andrew Johnson he couldn’t wrestle in a match because he had dreadlocks. Johnson had his hair cut in order to wrestle, and the referee was later suspended. While the bill passed in the House and wasn’t brought up in the Senate, New Jersey passed its own hair anti-discrimination bill following the incident.
The CROWN Act was revived last year after the growing Black Lives Matter movement from summer 2020, as well as increased reports of Black Americans experiencing discrimination for how they wear their hair.
Black women are 1.5 times more likely to be sent home from work for their hair than their non-Black counterparts, according to a 2019 report by the JOY Collective. The study also found that Black women are 80% more likely to feel they have to change their natural hair for the workplace.
“Far too often, Black people, especially Black women and girls, are derided or deemed unprofessional simply because their hair does not conform to white beauty standards,” Watson Coleman said on the House floor when the bill went up for vote on the last day of Black History Month in February.
White House support
The White House’s announcement of support is a symbolic gesture of support for the bill, giving it attention after earlier attempts to make it law failed.
The CROWN Act was reintroduced in 2021 through a shortcut measure reserved for uncontroversial bills and needed a two-thirds supermajority to pass. However, the vote finished 235-188 because it lacked enough GOP support. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) dismissed the bill, calling it a “bad hair bill.”
A coalition of Black Democratic congresswomen — Reps. Ilhan Omar (MN), Ayanna Pressley (MA), Barbara Lee (CA), Gwen Moore (WI) and Watson Coleman — announced in a statement that they would reintroduce the bill when it could pass with a simple majority.
“We will bring the CROWN Act back and pass it with a simple majority. We won’t allow Republican antics to stand in the way of Black people having the right to live as their authentic selves,” tweeted Watson Coleman.
