NEW ORLEANS, LA – Last month, the ACLU of Louisiana (ACLU) and the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colorado (NARF) announced a victory on behalf of a Native American child attending public school in St. Tammany Parish. Curtis Harjo is a five-year-old Native American child who wears his hair in a neat braid down his back. The Harjo’s religion, like that of many Native Americans, includes a belief that hair should not be cut, except as a symbol of mourning upon the death of a loved one. The principal at Curtis’ elementary school advised his mother that he would be required to cut his hair to continue to attend school even though to do so would violate his family’s religion.
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