Hair and Health Among African American Women: Historical and Sociocultural Considerations for Physical Activity and Mental Health
A student-led symposium is turning portraiture and storytelling into a front line in the fight against hair discrimination, making the case that Black hair has always been a sight of resistance.
The event called RCROWNS held at Rutgers University–Newark, centered on a group of students set out to untangle the social justice fabric of Black hairstyles, while calling out systemic injustices seen in acts of microaggressions and discrimination across the Black diaspora.
“It’s not that our experience is that our hair is inferior, it’s that it has been socialized for us and pushed upon us,” said Nathan Duguid, the director and founder of #RCROWNS and a sophomore majoring in sociology in an interview with JC IN THE NEWS.
“Some of these words will help people understand where they come from, why they are being used, and detach them from their identity and attach them to their experiences, so that they can recognize how discriminatory those experiences are.”
The centerpiece of the program panel discussion was titled “Decolonized Professionalism: Policy, Pride, and International Perspectives.”
One aspect of the panel delved into the word “’professionalism,” as it has been constructed and enforced in American workplaces, schools, and the take on Black hairstyles.
Duguid added that the very use of semantics in describing what he called “textured hair” is itself a battleground — where carefully chosen words flatten and opaque the lived experiences of those who have faced discrimination because of it.
He credits the following members in putting together the symposium, which took nearly five months to set in preparation: Aaronae Everson, volunteer coordinator, Moutar Sampil, director of visual media, Tahquan Johynson, director of digital media, and Sarah Austin, student artist.
A line up of panelists spoke on how present day workplaces are still lingering with “roots of systemic oppression,” and pressed further, arguing that even the intersection of public health and hair care has been shaped and exploited by the demands of a capitalist society.
“Today’s panel asks a deceptively simple question, what defines professionalism and who does that definition serve?” said Cliff Dawkins, the moderator of the panel and an alumni at Rutgers University Law student.
The idea that Black students should be able to walk into a classroom or a job interview without fear of discrimination based on their natural hair remains, in 2026, a contested topic and talking point harked on by the panelists who spoke at the symposium.
Dr. Patti O’Brien-Richardson, an associate professor at the university, drew from nearly a decade of public health work in Africa, recounting a pattern she witnessed repeatedly in classroom settings — young girls arriving with damaged scalps.
“They were trying really hard to be like the Beyoncés of the world, the Shakiras of the world,” she said. “They were willing to put in clip-ins and to the level where it damaged their scalp,” weighing in on the aspect of public health when it comes to applying Eurocentric beauty standards.
The panelists stressed the importance of documenting workplace discrimination, leveraging social media, and building international coalitions to address hair discrimination.
“I just stopped caring what white America thought, what corporate America thought,” said Dr. Lenore Pearson, a professor who teaches at Rutgers Law School and shared her lived experience growing locks in a corporate setting. “I did not care what these people thought enough to change my look…in what their perception of me or what they feel you should be like in these environments.”
Panelists also discussed the micro-aggressions that come along with Black hairstyles.
More than 20% of Black women ages 25-34 had been sent home from work due to their hair. Black women were 1.5 times as likely as white women to be sent home from work as a result of their hairstyle, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute.
Kimberly Cross, a panelist and community organizer at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, brought her own story to the table—one that began thousands of miles away at an all-girls Catholic school in Jamaica.
“When you look beneath the surface of what that actually means,” she said, “we were not allowed to wear braids, weren’t allowed to wear afros, weren’t allowed to wear fades,” policies dressed in the language of decorum, she made clear, were in practice a direct suppression of Black identity.
“I was so mesmerized by the information…it was not widely accessible to me and my peers,” she told participants looking for alternative natural hair products rather than damaging chemicals.
One piece of legislation brought on by the panelists was the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair or the CROWN Act, a law that prohibits discrimination based on hair texture, hair type or other hair textures tied to racial identity.
The CROWN Act legislation has passed in 30 states, but codifying the legislation on the federal front still does not exist as of yet.
Panelists pointed to the rise in anti-DEI legislation sweeping statehouses across the country and campus environments that once made halting progress toward inclusion are now under political siege.
Dr. Melissa Valle brought her experience at Columbia University into focus as a graduate student, recounting the discrimination she faced as a doctoral student specializing in Afro-descendant communities in Latin America.
She recounted a memory, walking into the office and exchanging what seemed, at first, like a simple compliment — the administrator looked at her and said, “Your hair looks amazing,” She thanked her. Then came the follow-up that reframed everything: “Light socket amazing.”
“In my heart and soul, I wish that hair just didn’t matter at all,” she told the room. “For all the joy that we can find in hair, there’s just so much pain.”
Panelists drove home a sobering pattern: Black students are still being disciplined in schools for wearing traditional hairstyles and that reality does not exist in isolation.
It is part of a broader, “well-documented trend” as indicated by the panelists, in which Black students face disciplinary action at disproportionately higher rates than their white counterparts, a disparity that panelists made clear is not coincidence, but rather a consequence to “ongoing systemic issues in the workplace.”
The symposium closed with a key presentation situating the entire project on the basis of border approaches when it comes to the framework of restorative justice— making the case for multimedia storytelling as a tool for representation, resistance, and liberation.
“I thought of the word ‘embrace’ when I decided to start this painting,” said Sarah Austin, a sophomore at Rutgers University Newark, who had her artwork featured at the symposium, and discussed chipping away at social constructs when it came Blackhairstyles.
“Just knowing that no matter what shape or form you come in you are accepted and there is a space for you I feel like is the main mission,” she said related to her artwork, showcasing traditional hair weaving.