An Ohio bill that would prohibit discrimination against natural hair in jobs, housing, and public K-12 schools is one step closer to becoming law.  

Ohio House Bill 178, better known as the CROWN Act, passed out of the Ohio House Civil Justice Committee with a 9-3 vote Tuesday. Republican state Reps. Gary Click, Al Cutrona, and Brian Stewart voted against the bill.

Reps. Juanita Brent, D-Cleveland, and Jamie Callender, R-Concord, introduced the CROWN Act last year — which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. This is the third General Assembly in a row that Brent has introduced CROWN Act legislation, but this is the first time it passed out of committee.

HB 178 would make it unlawful to discriminate against someone’s hair texture and protective hair styles such as braids, locks and twists under Ohio’s Civil Rights Law. The bill would also allow someone who alleges that a school has discriminated against them based on traits associated with their race the ability to sue in any court that has jurisdiction. 

The bipartisan bill originally included private schools, but an amendment to the bill that was adopted during Tuesday’s meeting stripped those words from the piece of legislation. 

“We’ve gone over these amendments painstakingly with Representative Callender and Representative Brent and they are both very supportive,” said Civil Justice Chair Brett Hillyer, R-Uhrichsville.  

However, Brent had previously highlighted two separate examples from Ohio private schools to show the need for the bill in her sponsor testimony last summer. 

“In 2020, six-year-old Aston Johnson had to leave Zion Temple Christian Academy in Cincinnati because of his dreadlocks,” she wrote in her testimony. “His natural hairstyle was not permitted in their school. In 2017, fourteen-year-old Malachi Wattley was banned from Central Catholic High School in Toledo because his dreadlocks were not permitted in their school. Our children should never have to experience discrimination for what they look like and who they are.”

The bill has overwhelming received proponent testimony including from the Cleveland NAACP, Columbus City Councilmember Shayla Favor and the East Cleveland School District, among others.

Only Kevin Chimp on behalf the Ohio Chamber of Commerce submitted opponent testimony, writing “it increases potential civil liability for employers, limits at-will employment, and restricts an employer’s ability to set their own workplace policies that aim to keep customers and employees healthy.”

CROWN Research studies

Two-thirds of black children in majority-white schools have faced race-based hair discrimination, according to a 2021 CROWN Act study. 86% of those children reported experiencing hair discrimination by age 12. 

Black women’s hair is 2.5 times more likely to come across as unprofessional and more than 20% of Black women ages 25-34 said they have been sent home from work because of their hair, according to a 2023 CROWN Workplace Research Study. 

Twenty-three states have already enacted the CROWN Act as of last summer, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. A handful of Ohio cities — including Columbus, Cleveland Heights, Akron, and Cincinnati — have already enacted the CROWN Act at the local level. 

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a federal CROWN Act legislation in 2022, but it never made it to a vote in the Senate. 

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This story is provided by Ohio Capital Journal, a part of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit. See the original story here.