That the  Madison Academy in Burton, Michigan, the Home of the Eagles, has a hair policy for boys isn’t particularly surprising.  As was learned from the mistakes of the 1960s, long hair breeds ideas, and ideas are dangerous.  Then again, so is cancer.

From the  Detroit News via Radley Balko :

Not long ago, J.T. Gaskins was honored on his high school’s “Wall of Fame” for perfect behavior.

Now he’s doing school work from home after being suspended by the governing board of his charter school over the length of his hair.

The 17-year-old leukemia survivor said he decided over the holidays to grow out his hair and donate it to Locks of Love after learning that the sister of a family friend had cancer.

In the process, officials at Madison Academy in Burton ruled Monday that Gaskins’ hairstyle is violating school policy.

It’s not that the school wants to suspend J.T.  They couldn’t be more sympathetic.  Well, actually they could be.

“I need his hair out of his eyes and off the collar,” Kneer told the Associated Press. “I really want this boy to be back in school. I feel like combing his hair wouldn’t be a big concession … He doesn’t have hair down the middle of his back. It’s an inch over his collar.”

So close, but rules are rules.

Just as “zero tolerance” was the favored mantra of those who wanted to demonstrate their steadfast dedication to the flavor of the month, it has now fallen somewhat out of favor as a reflection of inflexibility and knee-jerk reaction.  But when it comes to school policies and the demands placed on children, it remains the beloved basis for administrators.  The fear is that once a policy is breached, regardless of reason, schools will devolve to chaos.  That’s what comes from teaching Lord of the Flies.

How and why hair length of young gentlemen has gone from a matter of transitory personal expression to the death of western civilization isn’t exactly clear.  Granted, the mullet is just bad taste, but a great many schools seem to believe that the homogenization of hair length is critical to their mission.  Having had long hair myself years ago, the worst that can be said about it is that it takes a lot more work to care for than short hair.

However, assuming that those in charge of schools are entitled to dictate policy, and that parents have a choice of whether to send their children to schools with certain policies or not, the efficacy of Madison Academy’s hair code isn’t at issue. 

That the school can simultaneously laud J.T. Gaskins on its Wall of Fame, empathize with his being a cancer survivor, laud his charitable goal and yet suspend him for violating a school policy of such trivial and dubious significance, makes this story significant.

Not long ago,  Senior Judge John Kane of Colorado wrote that we live in the Age of Administration. Rather than address how the inflexibility of the hair rule works against so many of the other pedagogical interests, so many important lessons schools seek to teach their students, the administration of the rule, simply because it is a rule, must prevail.

There is no shame to the importance of the grocery clerks if they come to a situation where they realize that their beloved rules don’t fit as well as they thought.  There are times when a thoughtful change is warranted, or when an exception for extraordinary circumstances should be made.  But the fear that any variation, any sign of weakness, will be the death of the rule.  And as goes one rule, so goes all rules. Once an exception is made, no rule is safe.

For many, they not only understand the grocery clerk’s mindset, but agree with it.  It’s like “negotiating with terrorists,” in its absolutist need.  Except it’s not like that at all.  The problem is the inclination to make rules about everything, as if we can control, in advance, every aspect of life to achieve rule-born perfection.  As lawyers, dealing with the product of legislatures designed to address a particular problem but constantly fending off the rule of unintended consequences, we know only too well that there will inevitably be a situation where a law, or a rule, works out poorly, proscribing something it was never meant to proscribe.  We argue that this wasn’t the intent, and that it should get a pass.

Schools present the problem as badly, if not worse, than does society at large, both because it affects children (who don’t deserve to be dealt with so summarily) and because of societal interests that do everything in their power to protect children from everything under the sun.  They have policies galore. They have rules covering every conceivable bit of conduct. They love rules.

Perhaps some school will consider a primary rule to do no harm, to which all other rules are subject.  Or perhaps somebody in the administration of the school will decide that it’s time to end the age of administration and stop the grocery clerks from going down their checklists.  Until then, both zero tolerance, and the mere adoration of immutable rules, are teaching a great lesson to children, that there is no reason to think when deciding on conduct.  Just look at the rules. Great lesson.