No Cornrows: The controversy in Japan school over hairstyles

A school in western Japan is receiving flak for its strict hairstyle rules after it separated a mixed-race teenager from his classmates at their graduation ceremony. The 18-year-old student faced differential treatment at the hands of the authorities at his public high school in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture, because he plaited his hair into cornrows, reported Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun on Tuesday (29 March). Let’s take a look at the incident in detail and Japan’s stringent school rules. Segregated from other pupils The incident took place on 27 February when the unnamed teenager – who has black and curly hair – wore braids at his high school graduation as he wanted to appear with “neat hair” for the occasion. However, he was made to sit alone at the back of the hall during the ceremony, segregated from his fellows, as per VICE News.

Teachers also reportedly told him not to respond when his name was called out.

As per reports, he left midway through the ceremony but went back to the school later to collect his diploma. He was asked to wait in an empty room. When he went to the washroom, he was followed by a teacher who later told him to leave the school building as he waited for his friends, according to The Guardian ‘Not your special day’ Speaking to Mainichi Shimbun, the teenager said he was “frustrated” over the incident. “I wasn’t able to create happy memories to mark the three years I spent at the school with my friends”. The student, who has an African-American father and a Japanese mother, said he learnt about the cultural significance of cornrows online and from his father. “I was frustrated because I felt like I was being told, ‘This is not your special day.’ The hairstyle represented my father’s roots and culture in the Black community,” the student said, as per The Guardian. The student’s father told the Japanese newspaper: “Braiding is a way for Black people to arrange their hair, the same way that Japanese people part their hair. It’s discriminatory to assume that a hairstyle with roots is a violation without any reason". Reacting to the controversy, Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of the Opposition Democratic Party for the People, said in a tweet, “I was surprised to see a response similar to the old US racial segregation policy of ‘separate but equal.’ Why do you have to worry about the hairstyle? It’s a graduation ceremony”.

かつての米国の人種隔離政策separate but eaqual （分離すれども平等）のような対応にびっくり。ええやんか、髪型なんかいちいち目くじら立てんでも。卒業式なんやし。多様性に対する受容度を教育現場でも高めていかないと。

黒人ルーツの髪形「校則違反」　卒業式で席隔離 https://t.co/5MJdcnQjwh

— 玉木雄一郎（国民民主党） (@tamakiyuichiro) March 28, 2023

He also said that the country should make more efforts to accept diversity in education. ALSO READ: ‘Japan will disappear’: The country’s declining population and the challenges to tackle the crisis explained What did the school say? As the incident came to light, the school said the student’s cornrows were against the rules, adding that he was not barred from the ceremony, just made to sit elsewhere. School authorities told the prefectural board of education that the student had not explained “his ethnic background and the reason for wearing cornrows”, as per The Japan Times report. The school had previously asked the teenager to cut his “long” hair as it violated the school’s norms that demand hairstyles should not be “trendy” but be “tidy and student-like”, the report added. The school’s rules also stipulate that boys should have hair that does not cover their eyes, ears, or shirt collars. Bleaching, dyeing, and hair-drying is also banned, but the regulations have no mention of braiding, reported VICE News. ALSO READ: Severed Head, Mutilated Bodies: How grisly cat killings have Japan on edge Japan’s restrictive school rules This is not the first time that Japan has come under scrutiny over its stringent school rules known as burakku kousoku. From some deciding underwear colour of students to others their sock and skirt length, Japanese schools have strict regulations for their pupils. One school has gone as far as to edit a student’s yearbook pictures so her brown hair would appear darker, noted VICE News. Earlier this month, the Osaka Bar Association’s lawyers warned teachers at an elite boys school after receiving complaints from several students last year about the implementation of hair regulations that included pulling and cutting their hair. As per The Guardian, the school mandates its students to keep their hair short around the ears and neckline, while fringes should not touch eyebrows. In 2017, a student sued the Osaka prefectural government after she was forced by her school to dye her hair black. She had to eventually drop out of the school as teachers did not believe her natural hair colour was brown and repeatedly pressured her to dye them. In 2021, a court in Osaka said the school’s action were legal, while also ruling that the former student should get 330,000 yen in damages. [caption id=“attachment_12387292” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Japan schools have often come under fire for regulating everything from hairstyles to clothes of students. Reuters (Representational Image)[/caption] Commenting on the cornrows incident, Asao Naito, an associate professor of sociology from Meiji University, told VICE World News, “Japanese schools place far greater importance on the school’s image as a whole than a student’s individualism”. “They strictly enforce obedience in the form of hairstyles, skirt lengths, underwear colours, and so on, as an act of showing that the human being belongs entirely to the school and is a servant of the school,” he added. Is Japan doing something about it? Amid several controversies, the education ministry told the local education authorities in 2021 to review their rules regularly and take a “common sense” approach to “changing times”, reported The Guardian. Last year, around 200 public high schools and other educational institutions in Tokyo said they would ease five regulations, including that which requires students to have black hair. Fukuoka City in southern Japan has said it would end the requirement of gender-specific hairstyles in all junior high schools. A public high school in western Japan plans to introduce gender-neutral rules from April. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.