Scholar-in-Residence Wendy Greene to Lecture on Hairstyles and Discrimination Greene's lecture, “#FreeTheHair: How Black Hair is Making Civil Laws Right,” will take place at 4pm on Nov. 19 at W&L Law.
On Tuesday, Nov. 19, Frances Lewis Law Center Scholar-in-Residence Wendy Greene will give a lecture entitled “#FreeTheHair: How Black Hair is Making Civil Laws Right.”
The lecture will take place from 4:00pm-5:00pm on Tuesday, Nov. 19 in Classroom A, Sydney Lewis Hall, on the campus of Washington and Lee University. The event is free and open to the public.
Having spent her life advocating for protections against racial inequality and discrimination, Greene’s specific focus has lately turned to “grooming codes discrimination.” Greene coined the term herself, and she is one of the world’s leading experts on the topic.
Her scholarship, for example, was cited by the NYC Commission on Human Rights as the organization developed new guidelines. Also, Greene testified before the California State Judiciary Committee in support of the C.R.O.W.N. Act (Creating Respectful and Open Workplaces for Natural Hair Act). The bill passed unanimously in the California State Senate, and this summer Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law.
In this lecture, Greene will discuss the discrimination that African descendants suffer when they don natural hairstyles like twists, braids, afros and locs. She will also explore landmark municipal state and federal legal reforms as well as current global civil rights movements that seek to redress this form of discrimination. Often, their efforts at reform require re-designing current civil and human rights laws.
In addition to being an expert on racial inequality in the United States, Greene is one of the few legal scholars engaged in the comparative study of racial slavery and race relations in the Americas and Caribbean. Before teaching, Greene worked at a Washington D.C. lobbying firm and a Houston, Texas boutique labor and employment law firm.
Greene’s book, “#FreeTheHair: Locking Black Hair to Civil Rights Movements,” is forthcoming.
