The Long Hair Controversy

""My hair like Jesus wore it. Hallelujah I adore it! Hallelujah, Mary loved her son. Why don't my mother love me?"
- from the hit Broadway musical "HAIR," 1968.

"Are you a boy, or are you a girl. With your long blonde hair, you look like a girl."
- from "Are You a Boy, or Are You a Girl, recorded by the Barbarians, 1966.

Introduction

Of all the issues that were publicly debated in the United States during the 1960s, one that may on the surface seem minor is the controversy that arose over the wearing of long hair by young males. Indeed, when compared to certain other divisive topics of the era, such as the Civil Rights Movement or the Draft, the question appears, as one commentator has written, to be a classic case of the proverbial "tempest in a teapot." Upon closer examination it becomes clear that such a notion is mistaken. The inordinate amount of attention this issue received in the press, its treatment in motion pictures, and the musical recordings it inspired all serve as testimony to the fact that the debate over long hair was hardly inconsequential. Said one observer, in an article published in 1968: "Seriously discussing hair is as foolish...as debating the merits of brown versus black socks. But so many Americans are investing so much time, energy, and impassioned emotion in a ceaseless campaign to remove beards and long hair from the face of the nation that hair has become as volatile an issue as the war in Vietnam, the urban riots, or the dollar drain."

In retrospect, it is evident that nothing, perhaps, served to widen the so-called "Generation Gap" more than the debate over long hair. While there were certainly a number of adults who had no objection to long hair on young men, it appears that the majority of older Americans were opposed to it, some quite strongly. In some instances the issue transcended personal opinion. Perhaps the most conspicuous manifestation of adult opposition were school dress codes that prohibited the wearing of long hair by male students. Most pupils appear to have complied, albeit with some reluctance. A smaller number of young Americans chose to challenge the regulations, some in court. Texas teens were no exception. During the late 1960s and early 1970s a number of such battles were fought in Texas courtrooms, with mixed results. After more than thirty years, the controversy has yet to abate. Citing a 1968 case which originated in Dallas County, the Texas Supreme Court ruled as recently as October 1997 that school districts have the right to discriminate between male and female students when promulgating hair length regulations.

Origins of the Controversy

The only thing on which both sides of the question seem to have concurred was who to credit for starting the trend (or blame, depending upon point-of-view): namely, four English Rock n' Roll musicians - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, collectively known as the Beatles. In 1964 these four young men brought a phenomenon called "Beatlemania" to the United States. To simply say that they were popular with American teenagers, particularly teenage girls, would be a gross understatement. In terms of the excitement they generated (not to mention sales of 45 rpm records), there had been nothing like them in the music industry since Elvis Presley came to prominence in the mid-1950s. The success of the "Fab Four," as John, Paul, George, and Ringo were dubbed by the press, opened the door for a flood of other musical groups from their homeland, the so-called "British Invasion."

The American press gave extensive coverage to the arrival of the Beatles and other British groups on these shores. The news media seemed particularly fascinated by the Fab Four's singular ability to cause an audience of adoring teenage fans to scream so loudly the music couldn't be heard. Reporters quickly deduced it was not just the Beatles' music which drove girls wild, it was also the four young men's physical appearance, the most conspicuous aspect being their hair, which by 1964 standards seemed excessively long, in that it covered their ears and forehead and touched the back of their collars. In short order the Beatles were saddled with a variety of clever sobriquets, such as the "Mopheads."

Questions from curious reporters about the Beatle hairstyle were something the bemused young men from Liverpool found themselves answering time and again. More often than not their response was good humored and displayed that dry wit for which they quickly became noted. "What excuse do you have for your collar-length hair?" asked one reporter. Replied John Lennon: "It just grows out yer head." When another interviewer asked, "Are you going to get haircuts in America?" Ringo replied "What d'you mean? We got them yesterday." In time, questions about their hair apparently grew tiresome. On one occasion a female reporter asked the Beatles if their hair was real or if they wore wigs. George Harrison's reply was less than affable: "Our hair's real. How about yours lady?"

The press was also curious about the origin of the Beatle haircut. "Where did you get your hairstyle?" queried one reporter. Paul McCartney responded, "From Napoleon. And Julius Caesar too. We cut it anytime we feel like it." To which Ringo Starr added, "We may do it now!" Another reporter asked John Lennon when the Beatles decided on their haircut. He replied: "We didn't decide on it. The only reason I didn't have long hair at thirteen was because I were kept getting told to get it off. I've always liked it, you know, and when I met George and Paul and Ringo they've always liked it...We didn't have it the same as this but it was long." One of the most plausible versions credited George Harrison, who said: "It was while we were in Germany. I went in swimming and when I came out I didn't have a comb. So my hair just dried. The others liked it the way it looked and there we were."

In truth the Beatle haircut was not originated by the Beatles themselves. During their first visit to Hamburg, Germany in 1961, where they played nightclubs in the infamous Reeperbahn district, the young Liverpudlians were befriended by a small group of German university students. At that time the Beatles all wore their hair in a greasy, back-combed "Teddy-Boy" style. During their second visit a year later, one of the German girls, a budding photographer named Astrid Kircherr, convinced Stuart Sutcliffe, the Beatles' original bass guitar player, to allow her to cut and brush his hair forward in the "French style" favored by the German students. At first, even the young Englishmen destined to introduce this hairstyle to the world were skeptical. That same evening, when Stuart Sutcliffe turned up at a nightclub they were booked to play, the rest of the Beatles laughed at their friend. But gradually, the others adopted the style; first George, then Paul, and finally, John. Only Pete Best, the drummer who was later replaced by Ringo Starr, kept his "Teddy-boy" hairstyle.

In January 1964, about a week prior to the Beatles' first U.S. tour, LIFE magazine attempted to explain the effect "Beatlemania" had been having on the United Kingdom in an eight-page pictorial spread subtitled "THEY CROWN THEIR COUNTRY WITH A BOWL-SHAPED HAIRDO." The article reported that many British adults "grump at the widespread way the quartet's style of grooming is copied by adolescent England." Even the Royal Navy was affected, commented LIFE, quoting a British naval officer who told his crew: "I note with alarm an increasing number of peculiar haircuts affected by teen-age members of the ship's company, attributable, I understand, to the Beatles...Get deBeatled now." The same story reported that the headmaster of a boys school in Guilford, Surrey had banned Beatle cuts, declaring, "This ridiculous style brings out the worst in boys." In Kent, an English schoolboy faced with a similar ban was quoted as saying he would rather leave school than cut his hair. "And leave he did." said LIFE. On the last page of the report, the magazine printed a photo of two English boys standing on a street-corner. Both had Beatle-style haircuts. Prophetically, the magazine asked: "Omen for the U. S.?"

An omen? Most certainly. The apparent affect the Beatles' long hair had on their female admirers on both sides of the Atlantic did not go unnoticed by the teenage boys of America- especially after other British rock bands sporting Beatlesque hairstyles began enjoying similar success (and similar female adoration) in the United States. Indeed, of all the British musical groups that made it big in America in 1964 - the Dave Clark Five, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, Chad and Jeremy, to name but a few - not one had short hair. Indeed, some sported hair longer than the Beatles, who, not to be outdone, appear to have eschewed haircuts altogether. As if by some signal, so did the youth of America.

Adult Reactions

The first problem most boys encountered was that even at the average rate of .03 inches a day their hair took several weeks or months to grow to Beatle length, particularly if starting out from a crew-cut, a style popular in America during the early 1960's. Another obstacle to success were parents, principals, or employers who, as in Britain, were not fond of the new hairstyles. In Sixties People, a lighthearted look at 1960's youth culture in America, writers Jan and Michael Stern include the following scenario, a poignant word-picture of the dilemma faced by many teenage boys:

In Des Moines, Iowa, on a Friday night...Randy "Ringo" Babirusa is looking in his bathroom mirror, and he is frustrated by what he sees. Even when wetted with official Beatles Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Hair Spray and brushed straight ahead, Randy's bangs barely reach halfway to his eyebrows. They look like a wet crew cut. Hey, luv, that's exactly what they are, because the ruddy bank where Randy works as a teller since he came to Des Moines from the family farm in Walnut has a firm rule: no Beatle-length hair! Every Friday, male employees face sideburn inspection, at which they must demonstrate clean-cut space between ear and sidewall, and an exposed hairline up front.

It is just too humiliating to be going to the fab new night spot in Des Moines, the Westminster Disco, looking so bloody American; so Randy considers...the wig. Advertised as "he only authentic Beatle wig," it arrived by mail wrapped in clear plastic bag, with a cardboard label that features cameos of the four Beatles and an exclamation: WOW! The Beatles are here! Randy rips open the bag and pulls out what looks like a deflated wad of black cotton candy. It was guaranteed to fit all size heads, but it looks like a diminutive chignon on Randy's hedgehog hair.

About a year after the Beatles first became popular in the United States stories about American teenagers with long hair began to regularly appear in nationally-circulated magazines and continued unabated throughout the remainder of the decade. LIFE was one of the first to report on the trend in its issue of July 30, 1965. Entitled "Big Sprout Out of Male Mop-Tops," the five-page article included several color photographs, some full page, of young men sporting Beatle-inspired haircuts. Among those pictured were two young New Yorkers, Peter Weinberger and Bob Richmond, who were among the first members of their generation to encounter adult resistance. Both boys, said LIFE, "were dismissed from their summer school, largely because they refused to get haircuts." Apparently, Weinberger and Richmond weren't the only long-haired teens running into trouble with their elders, some of whom took action that might today be labeled harassment. Said the magazine: "In Cleveland "an exasperated gym teacher told his untrimmed students they would have to wear pink hair nets. In Los Angeles a jury convicted a boy of disturbing the peace - for refusing to cut his hair. In Lexington, Ky. a father bought his Beatle-loving son a dog license, complete with tag."

Not all adults were opposed to long hair, pointed out the magazine. One photo, of a family riding in a shiny, red Ford Mustang, was accompanied by this caption: "Happiness is practically a state of hair in the family of Eric Fehr (at the wheel) in Alexandria, Va. He and his wife approve of the longer styles, do all the barbering for their sons...Says Mrs. Fehr: 'It's great for the boys' egos the way everybody makes a fuss over their hair.'"

Whether or not parents approved of their sons' long hair was not the issue after school began in the fall of 1965. In September of that year a LIFE editor commented on the long hair trend, terming it a "crisis," and came out in support of school authorities who had implemented and sought to enforce hair length regulations. Recalling school principals who had "reacted aggressively" to the ducktail haircut of the 1950's, he wrote: "The real threat developed when the Beatles went to youthful heads. In the face of that hirsute eruption, an adult counterrevolution was inevitable, and this fall, by Dylan, we've got it." Defending their actions, the writer told of a Bronx high school dean who armed himself with a pair of scissors and met returning students at the front door, of a school in Chattanooga, Tennessee which issued "instructions detailing the precise dimensions of an acceptable haircut ('...neck clipped to even with bottom of lobe of ear and then tapered')," and of a Provincetown, Massachusetts principal who handed his students a copy of the school dress code and warned them: "Let no one fight this, let no one fight this, because you're going to fight a losing battle." "Teachers," concluded the editorialist, "have a perfect right not to teach anyone they can't see."

It's uncertain how many high schools across the country were affected by the long hair trend but according to a poll conducted by Good Housekeeping magazine three years later, a three-to-one majority of its readers agreed that schools had the right to implement and enforce edicts banning long hair on boys.

In Defense of Long Hair

In the fall of 1965, obviously inspired by newspaper and magazine reports of boys being sent home from school for having Beatle-style haircuts, song-writers Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil quickly composed a protest song entitled "Home of the Brave." Recorded by country singer Jody Miller for Capitol Records, the stirring ballad proved so popular with teenagers (who bought most of the 45 rpm records sold in the United States) that it rapidly climbed up the record charts, peaking at the number twenty-five position on September 25, 1965.

Another popular song inspired by the long hair controversy was titled "Are You a Boy Or Are You A Girl?" It was written and recorded by a Boston-based music combo called the Barbarians, the members of which appear to have annoyed with people who accused long-haired boys of being effeminate. One line in the song paid tribute to the originators of the trend with the words: "You're either a girl or you come from Liverpool."

The writer of an unsigned article in the November 12, 1966 issue of the Jesuit magazine America was critical of the argument that long-haired boys looked like girls. The author of the article, entitled "The Long Hair Controversy," also explored some of the other, somewhat nebulous reasons for adult opposition to long hair:

Few adolescent problems in this country have received the attention now being focused on the long hair so many young males are sporting...Some adults insist the style is "improper." If they refer to dirty, straggly hair, we have no argument with them...Some say that they oppose it "on principle," since it is clearly "not right." We aren't sure what this means...Other adults take umbrage at the very sight of long hair on the score that it is sissified. Granted that an effeminate young man may wear his hair long, assuredly it is not the hair style that makes him less masculine. Indeed, the thesis that long hair in a male is a sign of deficient masculinity is most difficult to defend in the light of history. The world has had long-haired, unquestionably masculine figures from Samson through Cyrano de Bergerac to Buffalo Bill Cody. We are not making a case for long hair. The whole matter hardly seems that important. But if it keeps adolescents happy, why not indulge their latest fancy?

One seemingly unlikely supporter of the long hair phenomenon was the National Review, a conservative periodical edited by William F. Buckley, Jr. An unsigned article in the November 1, 1966 issue read in part:

...a terrible contention has arisen between the elders of the public school and various of their charges, the matter being hair. The boys wish to let theirs grow...very long...The elders tell them to crop it, or be cast into oblivion...Youth will rebel. If they want to let their hair grow, so what? We're in favor of 1.) liberty, which involves combing your hair to please yourself, and 2.) opening all nonessential avenues of youthful rebellion, on the assumption that the Wild Ones, having exhausted their resources at the barber shop, will think twice before attempting the overturn of society...the elders are making damned fools of themselves. Let the boys grow it as long as it'll grow.

Another unsigned article appeared in the New Yorker in 1967, which touched upon the topic of long hair in history. Tongue-in-cheek, it likened modern-day opponents of long hair to Colonial New England Puritans:

...the question of male hair length has long vexed the Puritan conscience. In 1649, Governor Dudley, of the Bay Colony, with his Deputy Governor and seven assistants, issued this alarmed proclamation: "Forasmuch as the wearing of long hair after the manner of ruffians and barbarous Indians has begun to invade New England, contrary to the rule of God's word, which says it is a shame for a man to wear long hair, etc., we...do declare and manifest our dislike and detestation against the wearing of such long hair, as against a thing uncivil and unmanly, whereby men doe deforme themselves and offend sober and modest men, and doe corrupt good manners."

One of the longer and more serious essays in defense of long hair on young males appeared in the January 15, 1966 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. The writer, Bruce Jay Friedman, a published author and Broadway playwright (and father of three sons with long hair), made a convincing case against what he termed the "door-planters" and "bang-choppers," the people, he said, who felt it was their duty to "spend all their all of their time keeping the neighborhoods and schools pure." Commenting that there seemed to be plenty of sympathy for the "victims of racial and religious prejudice," Friedman lamented the apparent lack of concern in modern-day America for what he termed "the haters and excluders." Said Friedman:

As long as they don't get hysterical about it, I suppose its all right for teachers to be casually concerned about keeping the kids neat...I do have to worry about the doorway planters and bang choppers, however, because their kind of behavior implies that there is a threat in long hair, and the choppers are worried about something much more subtle than sloppy thinking. You probably should have a license to speculate about these things, but I guess that what frightens them is that if the boys wear their hair long, why then the boys are going to look like girls, and the lines between the sexes are going to get blurrier than ever. This can be frightening, and what better solution than to chop off a little hair so that the sex division can be all tidy again? The fact of course, is that the lines in many ways are sharp, but they are also blurry and you don't separate the sexes by hair rules any more than you do by passing edicts that girls can't play third base and men can't put on an apron and cook veal parmigiana.

The notion that adults found long hair in some way threatening was a view that may have found common currency among the young. In November 1968 an article written by Daniel Zwerdling, a sophomore at the University of Michigan, appeared in Today's Education. Zwerdling told of attending a high school where "the single most explosive, most recurrent issue was student dress, and especially hair styles" adding that "Hair excited more emotions than controversies over student participation in school affairs, religion in the school, even free expression of student opinion."

The problem, explained Zwerdling, was that to "millions of Americans, hair has become a hated symbol of the student generation's radical discontent with a society it did not create but now must inherit; a sure sign that the body underneath the hair takes drugs, doesn't aspire to law or business school, is unpatriotic, and opposes the war in Vietnam."

The truth, said Zwerdling, was that in most cases there was "no political plot or mysterious motive or subtle ploy, no subversive undertone." Boys, he said, wanted to let their hair grow just to see how it would look, and perhaps more importantly, because "they are imagining what the pretty girl in class will say."

College students and the occasional parent were not the only ones who had something to say in support long hair on boys. In the November 1967 issue of Good Housekeeping (the magazine whose readers overwhelmingly supported school administrators in their quest to keep students short-haired), public school teacher Mary Groves wrote "An open letter to the father of a boy who won't get his hair cut." Ms. Groves told of a boy named Andy, one of her students, whose father was adamantly opposed to his son's long hair. The purpose of the letter was to convince Andy's father (and all Good Housekeeping readers, obviously) that long hair on a boy wasn't necessarily effeminate and that a little rebellion wasn't such a bad thing. The problem, said Ms. Groves, is that too many parents were unable to distinguish "between harmless and harmful ways of rebelling." In the latter category she placed "drug-taking, drunken driving, stealing, and cheating." She classed "odd hairstyles" in the former, along with "irritating (to adults) ways of dancing [and] strange tastes in music."

Long Hair in Hollywood and on Broadway

Not surprisingly, the controversy over long hair also caught the attention of Hollywood. References to the controversy can be found in a number of motion pictures that were produced during the 1960s and early 1970s. One such film was "The Strawberry Statement" (loosely based on the book of the same name), which chronicles the adventures of a long-haired college student and would-be radical activist, played by actor Bruce Davidson. In one particular scene, Simon (Davidson's character), is having a telephone conversation with his father, who doesn't approve of his son's hairstyle. In the process of defending his long hair Simon invokes his disapproval of the materialism with which many young people equated the older generation at that time, declaring: "Well, some people have bad associations when they see long hair and some have 'em when they see long Cadillacs."

No doubt one of the most successful motion pictures of the 1960's, the now-legendary "Easy Rider," contains no less than three scenes depicting some form of long hair phobia. When interviewed about the making of the film, director Dennis Hopper revealed that although the movie's story was fictional, much of the America it portrayed was not. "I wanted to use actual residents of the towns we went into," said Hopper in an interview, "and let them say pretty much what they would actually say when they saw our long hair and so on. But it was worse, apparently, than Hopper or co-star Peter Fonda had anticipated. Said Hopper:

Every restaurant, man, every roadhouse we went in, there was a Marine sergeant, or a football coach who started with, "Look at the Commies, the queers, is it a boy or a girl?" We expected that. But the stories we heard along the way, man, true stories of kids getting their heads broken with clubs or slashed with rusty razor blades - rusty blades, man - just because they passed through towns with long hair. And not just in the South. In Montrose, Colorado...I walked into a bar and immediately a guy swung at me screaming, "Get outta here, my son's in Vietnam." and the local sheriff was right behind him, screaming that his son was in Vietnam, and I said, "Now wait a minute, " that I was an actor and there with the movie, whereupon the boys' high school counselor started screaming to get out, that his son was in Vietnam. And I thought, "What if I wasn't an actor, what if I was just traveling through and was thirsty?" So I said, "Okay, I'm hitchhiking to the peace march," whereupon eight guys jumped me. Incredible but true, I swear.

The final scene in Easy Rider is undoubtedly the most disturbing, depicting how the most extreme form of long hair-phobia could possibly have deadly consequences for the wearer. In this particular scene, Billy (Hopper) and Captain America (Peter Fonda) are riding their motorcycles alongside a levee somewhere in Louisiana. A pick-up truck with two rednecks in it drives up alongside Billy. Pointing a shotgun out the window, the passenger shouts, "Want me to blow your brains out?" Billy unwisely responds by giving the occupants of the truck "the finger." The last words Billy hears, before he is blown away, are: "Why don't you get a haircut?"

Another creative production, the hit musical "HAIR," opened on Broadway in 1968. A paean to the glories of long hair, the show's title tune, written by Gerome Ragni and James Rado, included a verse that many a young man was no doubt asking himself: "My hair like Jesus wore it. Hallelujah I adore it! Hallelujah, Mary loved her son. Why don't my mother love me?"

Texas Teens and Long Hair

It was in this climate of hair phobia, that began in 1964 and continued through the decade and into the 1970s, that Texas teenagers, like teenagers all over the nation, began to grow their hair long. And, like young people across America, they began to run into trouble on account of it, most often, it appears, at school.

One of the first nationally publicized cases of a boy being sent home from school on account of his long hair (apart from those mentioned previously) occurred in Houston in September 1965, when the son of a Rice University professor was suspended from Lamar High School only five days after school began, "for refusing to get 'a proper haircut,'" No other Texas case seems to have received national attention. There were at least two others, however, that attracted a considerable amount of notice locally.

One of these episodes began on Monday, February 14, 1966 when six male students at R. L. Turner High School in Carrollton, a Dallas suburb, were summoned to the office of Principal Howard O. Dunn. There, each of the boys, ranging in age from fifteen to seventeen, was told he was being suspended from school, on orders from the school board, for "creating a disturbance," i.e. for having long hair.

That same evening the six boys, one accompanied by their parents, appeared at a special school board meeting to protest the suspension. Fifteen year-old Terry Richardson, guitarist for a local rock band, was perhaps the most outspoken, listing for the board at least four reasons why he thought the boys should be permitted to keep their long hair. In his case, said Richardson, and in the case of seventeen year-old Bob Seay, drummer for another local band, they needed to have long hair to be successful in the music business. The owner of one venue, recalled Richardson, had refused to book his band when the group had short hair. After the band members grew their hair long, said the young man, they were able to secure the booking they had earlier sought. The teenager also declared that hair length was an expression of individualism and non-conformity. By banning long hair on boys, said Richardson, the board was violating the students' individual rights. Moreover, he noted, long hair on males was fashionable in the past. By growing their hair long, he and his suspended classmates were simply reverting to an older style.

The father of fourteen year-old Duane Medlin, apparently puzzled by the charge of "creating a disturbance," was present to defend his son. "I asked the principal," said Mr. Medlin, "if any disciplinary problem had been created by the boys with long hair and he said there had been none."

Although unrelated to any of the affected boys, two other adults, Mr. and Mrs. Dan Fraser, also spoke in defense of the suspended students. Echoing the sentiments expressed by young Richardson, Mr. Fraser declared that the school board was "instituting a small form of thought control" by "taking away the personal liberty of how a boy chooses to wear his hair." Mrs. Fraser agreed. "We already have too much conformity." she proclaimed, "I think it is highly important to allow young people to express themselves, even if you and I may not agree with the way they do it."

Perhaps hurting his cause more than helping it, Terry Richardson addressed the board a second time, pointing out that it was not he and the suspended boys who were the problem. Rather, he said, "it was other students, some of whom called them names or whistled at them. "I get rubber bands shot at me, spit wads thrown at me." he said, adding: "We're not disturbing them, they're disturbing us."

The boys' protest was in vain. Told that their long hair was "detrimental to the good of the school system," school board president William R. Linn declared: "This board has not changed and does not anticipate changing its policy on haircuts." Defending the decision, board member Donald H. Sheffield stated: "Anything that enters a school room which would disturb the academic atmosphere is our business." Conceding that it was a "judgment decision," Sheffield added his belief that "long hair causes such a disturbance, and therefore we have banned long hair on boys."

Although he was obviously unhappy with the board's decision, Terry Richardson was not surprised by it. Interviewed by a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald, he said: "We knew we didn't have a chance. We came expecting to be condemned to cut our hair." He and his suspended classmates, he added, would comply with the rule, but only because they valued their education.

The incident received a considerable amount of attention from the local press. The following day a large photograph of Terry Richardson, Duane Medlin and eighteen year-old Rick Webb appeared on the front page of the Dallas Times Herald. It was captioned "Threat of Scissors Looms." A later edition, in which the photo appeared inside the paper, carried a front-page story cleverly titled "Be-Beatled Board Bans Boy's Bangs." Not to be outdone, rival Dallas Morning News carried a photo of all six youths on the front page of its local news section, accompanied by a lengthy report.

Perhaps most surprising to all concerned were the remarks of prominent Dallas retailer Stanley Marcus, reported in the same issue of the Dallas Times Herald that carried the boys' photo on the front page. Speaking at a luncheon sponsored by Esquire magazine, Mr. Marcus, president of the prestigious Neiman-Marcus department store, was quoted as saying: "Each of us has the right to let our schoolboys wear their hair as they want to...I personally don't like long hair but don't let school boards get away with it. It is your duty to fight them."

Encouraged perhaps by Marcus' remarks and by the media attention they had received, at least three of the six boys decided to continue to fight the board's decision, despite Terry Richardson's Monday night declaration to the contrary. On February 16 the Times Herald reported that Duane Medlin's father, Chester, had contacted the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and had said "that if necessary, a private attorney would be retained to represent the boys."

The same article quoted Turner High School Principal Dunn, who said he had received a number of phone calls from parents who supported the school board's action. Some of the adults who had defended the long-haired youths at the Monday night school board meeting had also received phone calls, said the paper. But these were of a more ominous nature, being anonymous and in some cases, "profane."

The Times Herald, which had a reputation for being a bit more open-minded than its then-conservative rival, the Morning News, printed an editorial in its February 16 issue in which the writer declared:

Very few of us really approve of the Beatle haircuts which are so popular with high school boys, particularly those who make their spending money by playing in musical combos. The trouble is that the more attention that is paid to a teen-age fad, the more stubborn the faddists become...We don't question the authority of the Carrollton School Board in ordering haircuts for a group of boys this week but we wonder if a little more patience and the ridicule of their more conformist fellows wouldn't solve most of the problem.

On February 17, an editorial cartoon appeared in the Times Herald, drawn by staff cartoonist Bob Taylor. It depicted five English sheep dogs, one of which sported a close-cropped haircut. The caption read: "He sez non-conformity is his constitutional right, too." In case readers didn't understand, the picture included a newspaper rack on which a paper with the headline "Carrollton - Students' Beatle Hair-Cuts Create Snarl" could clearly be seen. It's uncertain whether Taylor was trying to get some point across or if he was just attempting to be humorous.

On Sunday, February 20, 1966, an editorial entitled "From Here to Absurdity" appeared in the pages of IN magazine, a Dallas Morning News supplement, which attempted to cater to the paper's teenage readers. The author of the unsigned article, who clearly reflected the paper's then-conservative viewpoint, indirectly labeled the six Carrollton boys "crackpots" and "self-indulgent exhibitionists" and declared:

Fads, such as unconventional dress and long hair, may on the surface appear to be the essence of nonconformity. They are, however, conformity reduced to absurdity...The real nonconforming teen-agers today are not the ones who wear their hair like girls and protest they want to change the rules of society. Rather, they are the ones who have strong and deep convictions, who have competed in the sciences, languages and the arts.

Earlier, the magazine had run an article in which a sampling of local teens voiced their opinion about long hair on boys and short skirts on girls. In general, the kids were in favor of both but, as one boy reported: "There aren't many boys...who wear long hair because the school doesn't allow it.

On Monday, February 21, reported the Times Herald, the episode seemingly reached an end when Duane Medlin and Terry Richardson, the two lone hold-outs "both capitulated with trips to the barber over the weekend." At the same time, said staff writer Ray Bell, "some of those affected have indicated the board may have won a battle and lost a war," citing Chester Medlin's attempts to interest the ACLU. in the incident. The paper also printed a statement written by Mrs. Dan Fraser, who had defended the six boys at the school board meeting although none were her own children. Said Mrs. Fraser:

The issue falls on a deeper question - does the majority have the right to prescribe the free choice of the minority? Our whole system of government is based upon the belief that the rights of the individual must be protected. All the safeguards written into our Constitution and Bill of Rights are for the purpose of that protection...

The same issue of the paper also carried a letter to the editor from a Mrs. Jack R. Gipe, who had been provoked by Stanley Marcus' luncheon comments. "Thank the good Lord," she wrote, "Mr. Marcus is not a member of the school board. There must be a certain amount of conformity in every educational system as well as in every business."

Another reader, whose letter appeared in the February 22 issue of the Times Herald, not only said she supported the Carrollton School Board but implied that school authorities had the backing of God. It's apparent that she also held the view, prevalent among so many adults of the time, that boys with long hair were somehow effeminate. Declared Mrs. Harriet Baggett of Dallas: "I am on their side. Had God wanted that group or others like them to be girls certainly He would have made them that way."

In the same issue a Garland teenager, Cynthia Deaton, voiced her support of the Carrollton boys: "The members of the board decreed that every boy at Turner shall have hair no longer than what is termed a 'young man's haircut.' Is this fair to the youth of America? Should these young men not be allowed to express themselves in any way, so long as it does not infringe on the rights of others?"

Although it appears not to have done the six suspended youths any good, the Dallas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, it was reported in the news on February 22, belatedly "issued an appeal in the haircut controversy which erupted recently before the Carrollton-Farmers Branch school board." Written by the president of the Dallas chapter, J. H. Kultgen, Jr., the brief letter urged the school board to reconsider their position in light of "what seems to be the simple right of the boys and their parents in a personal matter."

An editioral which appeared in the February 22 issue of the Dallas Times Herald allowed staff writer A. C. Greene to get in what amounted to the final (albeit ineffective) word on the Carrollton suspensions:

I would be willing to wager that about 50 per cent of the attraction of long hair is because parents and school boards don't like it. I would even go further and say that if, instead of banning it, schools would hold long hair contests with awards rather than punishments for the winners, the trend would decline before you could say Bob Dylan.

But aside from personal preference, just how long is long hair, and at what point does a boy become unfit for the classroom because of the length? A lot of the resentment officially against long hair possibly goes back to the hoodlum reputation of the ducktail haircut which...was almost prima facie evidence of rebelliousness against society. Today's long hair doesn't seem to have the deep social significance the other had.

I cannot see the justice of issuing short hair ultimatums which are based on nothing but personal taste. I will go along with a public school official's need to use the leather strap on a rebel's posterior, but a boy's hair is his own.

Like Terry Richardson and Bob Seay, a number of other Dallas area youths earned spending money by playing in a teenage "garage band" (so-called because they often used their parents' garage as a place to rehearse). These groups performed at various venues, including school dances, private parties and teen clubs. Many were amateurish "three-chord wonders" who grew their hair long and dreamed of being the next big thing after the Beatles. Some were proficient, if not particularly original, musicians. All played cover versions of Top 40 hits and, from time to time, a song or two they had composed themselves. Some of the better, as well as better-known, groups around town included the Pagans, the Minutemen, the Briks, and Kenny & the Kasuals (house band at the prestigious Studio Club in North Dallas). One local group, the Five Americans, gained some measure of fame when they were signed to the local ABNAK record label which, over a period of two years, released four singles by the band that made it into the national Top 40 charts.

Not least among these local bands was "Sounds Unlimited," a group of five aspiring musicians which included seventeen year-old Phillip Ferrell, Paul Jarvis (also seventeen), and Steven Webb, eighteen. All three attended W. W. Samuel High School in the Pleasant Grove section of Dallas. The other two members of the combo were Ronald Davis, a student at the newly opened El Centro College in downtown Dallas, and sixteen year-old Mesquite High School student Ronald Mears. No doubt attempting to emulate the Beatles and other popular bands, the boys had refrained from getting haircuts. Moreover, the group had been taken under the wing of a manager, Kent Alexander, who had them sign a contract that stipulated, among other things, that for professional reasons they would keep their hair long.

In September 1966, on the first day of school, a scene similar to the one played out at Turner High School only seven months earlier took place at W. W. Samuel High School, where a school rule against long hair was in place. On that day Ferrell, Jarvis, and Webb went to the office of Principal William S. Lanham. There, the three youths, all sporting "Beatle-type" hairdos, asked Lanham if he could make an exception in their case and allow them to keep their long hair, on account of their involvement in Sounds Unlimited. Lanham refused, telling the boys in no uncertain terms that they would have to get haircuts before they could be enrolled in school. In effect, they were suspended. Unlike their contemporaries in Carrollton, however, Ferrell, Jarvis, and Webb decided to do more protest their principal's decision at a meeting of the school board.

The following Monday afternoon attorney Herbert L. Hooks, acting on behalf of the three affected youths and their parents, filed a lawsuit in federal court, naming the Dallas Independent School District, School Superintendent W. T. White, and Principal W. S. Lanham as defendants. The suit, the first of its kind filed in a federal court in Texas, argued that the school's hair-cut regulations were a violation of both the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Attorney Hooks, arguing that "any undue delay will hurt them scholastically," also requested an injunction which would allow the three youths to return to school until the matter could be decided in court. Judge W. M. Taylor, Jr., in whose court the suit was filed, promptly ordered a hearing for 9 a.m. the following morning, to allow the school district's lawyers an opportunity to oppose the injunction request.

On Tuesday morning the three young musicians and their parents were no doubt heartened when Judge Taylor issued the requested injunction, declaring: "The court hesitates to interfere with the operation of the school but under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 everyone has a right to an education. These boys appear to be qualified for school except for the length of their hair."

Taylor also set a date for two weeks later, for a formal hearing, to decide the matter. The youths may have also been encouraged by a report that appeared in the Dallas Times Herald which said that Stanley Marcus had sent a telegram in support of their cause to School Board President Lee McShan, Jr. In the message, Marcus declared:

I do not like long hair any more than the principal does, but I will fight for the rights of those students to wear their hair any way they choose. I urge you to see that this whole subject is given a thorough and prompt hearing.

On Thursday, September 22, 1966 Judge Taylor's courtroom was packed with W. W. Samuell High School students, local television news crews, and reporters for both Dallas newspapers. Some of the students - friends, fans, and supporters of the three young musicians - had to wait in the hall outside the courtroom after a federal marshall refused to let them enter because they weren't wearing jackets.

Inside, in what must have been uncomfortable proximity, School Superintendent W. T. White sat beside Ferrell, Jarvis, Webb and their parents.

Before testimony could be heard, said Judge Taylor, he first had to decide whether or not his court had any jurisdiction in the case. Arguing that it did not, the school district's lawyers pointed out a similar case in which a federal court had refused to issue an injunction for lack of jurisdiction.

Because the boys' lawyer was not familiar with the cited case, Judge Taylor adjourned court until after lunch, to give Hooks time to do some research. However, when court reconvened, Judge Taylor announced he would postpone his decision in respect to whether or not he had jurisdiction and allowed testimony to be heard.

The first witness called by Hooks was June Webb, Steven's mother. She testified that her son and the others were members of the band, "Sounds Unlimited," and that they had a contract with their manager which forbade them to cut their hair. Later, the actual contract was submitted as evidence. The mother of Paul Jarvis also testified, as did Principal Lanham, who said that he had originally told only Webb and Ferrell to cut their hair but that young Jarvis had said to him that he wouldn't come to school if his two friends couldn't. Jarvis later changed his mind, said Lanham, and asked to be allowed to return to school but was refused because by that time "his hair was longer."

On the witness stand, Principal Lanham admitted that he had since learned there were other students with long hair attending W. W. Samuel High School but said that until this particular suit was settled, he had decided not to take any action against them. Lanham also declared his belief that: "There is a definite correlation between dress and behavior...In a lot of cases extreme dress indicates disrespect for authority."

Before the court adjourned on Thursday, Hooks called five other long-haired teenagers to the witness stand, including Ron Mears, all of whom testified that the length of their hair had not caused them any trouble in school.

On Friday morning, when court reconvened, Judge Taylor denied a motion by Dallas Independent School District attorney Warren Whitman to dismiss the case on the grounds that the court lacked jurisdiction in the matter. Whitman also declared in vain that the boys' lawyer had failed to prove their case.

Under orders from Judge Taylor to continue the trial, Whitman questioned Phillip Ferrell, who revealed that two weeks earlier Sounds Unlimited had recorded and released a record which had been inspired by the three students' suspension from school. Questioned by another DISD attorney, Franklin Spafford, Ferrell said the record, entitled "Keep Your Hands Off of It," was "a general protest song" and disavowed the notion that its lyrics referred in particular to Principal Lanham. Ferrell admitted, however, that the record had been receiving air-play on some of the local Top 40 radio stations and was for sale in local record shops. At the same time, he denied that the boys' suspension was deliberately sought in order to use it as a "publicity stunt" to further record sales.

The boys' manager, Kent Alexander, was also questioned on Friday, agreeing with Spafford's assertion that it was a "happy coincidence" that the record had been recorded the day after Lanham had suspended the three teenagers. When Spafford asked Alexander: "Haven't you taken every opportunity to publicize this group?" the boys' manager candidly replied, "I certainly have."

Principal Lanham was also called to the stand on Friday (along with School Superintendent W. T. White and Lee McShan, Jr., President of the Board of Education, both of whom testified in support of Lanham). Questioned by the school district's attorney, Lanham was hesitant to say he was offended by the teens' recording, but admitted: "I don't appreciate it."

Following closing arguments by Whitman and Dan Gibbs, assistant to Herbert Hooks, Judge Taylor declared: "The court has not taken this matter lightly." Before adjourning, he advised all the parties concerned that he would make a decision on the matter in a few days.

After a week's deliberation, Judge Taylor handed down his decision, denying the boys' application for an injunction based on their claims that their civil rights had been denied. Said Taylor:

Among other reasons for this decision, it does not appear that Mr. Lanham, the principal, nor Dr. White, the superintendent, acted arbitrarily, capriciously nor unreasonably in refusing to admit the minor plaintiffs to the classroom of W. W. Samuell High School.

The conditions or terms upon which a public free education are granted in the high schools of Texas cannot be fixed nor determined by the pupils themselves.

Nor is a contract which is unenforceable against the minor plaintiffs in this state to be considered as determinative of the right.

Although Principal Lanham met with Ferrell, Jarvis and Webb after the trial and told them they could come back to school on Monday if they got haircuts, the three youths demurred. Instead, supported by their parents and their attorney they chose to appeal the case to the United States 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. "The boys will continue their education either at another school or by private instruction if necessary, so they can keep up with their studies pending an appeal." said Herbert Hooks.

Even after the U. S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2 to 1 to uphold Judge Taylor's decision, Ferrell, Jarvis and Webb were unbowed. Their next move was to appeal the decision to the United States Supreme Court. On October 14, 1968, more than two years after the youths first entered a courtroom, the justices refused to hear their appeal, thus ending the case. The lone dissenting voice was the Honorable William O. Douglas, who announced:

It comes as a surprise that in a country where the States are restrained by an Equal Protection Clause, a person can be denied education in a public school because of the length of his hair. I suppose that a nation bent on turning out robots might insist that every male have a crew cut and every female wear pigtails. But the ideas of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," expressed in the Declaration of Independence, later found specific definitions in the Constitution itself, including of course freedom of expression and a wide zone of privacy. I had supposed those guarantees permitted idiosyncrasies to flourish, especially when they concern the image of one's personality and his philosophy toward government and his fellow men. Municipalities furnish many services to their inhabitants; and I had supposed it would be an invidious discrimination to withhold fire protection, police protection, garbage collection, health protection and the like merely because a person was an off-beat non-conformist when it came to hair-do and dress as well as to diet, race, religion, or his views on Vietnam.

The lawsuit filed by Phillip Ferrell and his cohorts was but the first of eight such cases heard Texas courts between 1968 and 1972, which sought to overturn school district dress codes regulating male hair length. In nearly every case the plaintiffs argued that the codes violated their constitutional rights or that hair length was not in any way connected with disciplinary problems, as asserted by school authorities. Only one of these cases, Whitsell vs. Pampa Independent School District, was won by the student plaintiff. Two other cases brought to trial during this same period, where the plaintiffs were junior college students, were also successfully prosecuted (Calbillo vs. San Jacinto Junior College, 1969 and Lansdale vs. Tyler Junior College, 1970). This turn-of-events led one observer to remark: "Apparently, high school students in the southern United States are handed a new constitutional right along with their diploma at commencement."

Epilogue

It appears that since the early 1970s many school districts, both in Texas and elsewhere, have amended their dress codes to permit male students to wear long hair. The Dallas Independent School District, for example, no longer has a policy against long hair and hasn't for twenty years or more. These changes, no doubt, were brought about by one incontrovertible fact: so many young men were sporting long hair in the 1970s that schools had no choice but to concede defeat in the face of overwhelming numbers. Today, hair length rules may no longer be in force in many communities simply because today's teachers and administrators are some of the very same people who had long hair in the 1960s and 1970s, people who do not have an aversion to it.

Today, many Americans probably believe that the debate over long hair is a dead issue. While this may be true in some states, it is far from being the case in Texas. Incredibly, more than thirty years after Ferrell, Jarvis, and Webb sought succor in the federal judicial system, some Texas schools are still banning long hair on boys. In 1990, a student in Mesquite, Texas (the same Dallas suburb where Sounds Unlimited musician Ron Mears was a student in 1966) was suspended for having a pony tail. Trusting, perhaps, in the belief that they lived in more enlightened times, the family of twelve year-old Zachariah Toungate decided to challenge the Mesquite I.S.D.'s dress code regulations. In court, they cited a 1971 Texas law that seeks to prevent one sex from enjoying benefits that are denied the other. Six years later, on October 23, 1997, the Texas Supreme Court finally reached a decision in the case, voting 7 to 1, to uphold the school district's right to discriminate between male and female students in respect to hair length. Among the cases the judges cited to support their decision was the 1968 denial by the Supreme Court to hear Ferrell and company's appeal.

Perhaps the most ironic twist in the continuing debate is that although it is no longer forbidden in many Texas school districts, only a very few young men can today be seen wearing long hair. This lends credence to the notion, espoused by one writer in the 1960s, that "if adults admired their long hair more, the young would probably cut it off themselves," i.e., part of the appeal of long hair was simply that adults didn't like it. It also fulfills a prophecy made by the writer of an essay in the October 27, 1967 issue of TIME magazine, who said: "...in the light of historical evidence that how men wear their hair is cyclical, it may turn out that the next generation will feel an urge to be clean cheeked and crew cut - or even bald."

Copyright © 1997 & 2006 by Steven Butler. All rights reserved.