Long-haired Boys Win Legal Battle

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32314, 4 June 1970, Page 11

Long-haired Boys Win Legal Battle

(N-ZP A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, June 1

The United States Supreme Court has upheld the right of two Wisconsin schoolboys to wear their hair long.

The Washington State At-torney-General (Mr Robert Warren) has argued that public school students do not have a personal, fundamental right of free choice in grooming and dress. But his appeal was rejected unanimously. This, in effect leaves intact the decision by Fedearl District and Appeal Courts that the school officials could not expel Thomas Breen and James Anton.

They were students at the Williams Bay High School. Washington, in 1968, when they violated the school dress code adopted by students a year earlier; and they were expelled.

James Anton returned to school by agreeing to a haircut, but continued the legal fight, along with Thomas Breen.

The rule the two boys challenged reads: “Hair should be washed, combed and worn so that it does not hang below the collar-line at the back and over the ears on the side, and must be above the eyebrows. Boys should be clean shaven —long sideburns are out.” Mr Warren was appealing against a 2-1 decision by the Circuit Court in Chicago last December that “the right to wear one’s hair at any length or in any desired manner is an ingredient of personal freedom protected by the United States Constitution.”