from the ACLU, this is at Liberty. I'm Emerson Sykes, a staff attorney here at the ACLU and your host.

DeAndre Arnold was suspended from high school. Clinton Stanley Jr. was barred from first grade.

Chastity Jones was not allowed to start the job she was hired for.

And Maya and Deanna Cook were threatened with expulsion, all because of their hair.

Hair discrimination is a form of racial discrimination, but judges have been hesitant to say so,

because unlike skin color, people can change their hairstyles. But should they

have to? More and more advocates and officials are saying no. For example, the Crown Act,

a law that protects people with natural hair and hairstyles from discrimination in schools

and workplaces has already passed in three states. On this episode, we'll hear from Maya and Deanna Cook,

sisters who faced hair discrimination at their high school,

and Ria Tabicoe Mar,

director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project,

on what lawyers and activists can do to help.

In 2017, Deanna and Maya Cook were sophomores

at Mystic Valley Regional Charter School in Maldon, Massachusetts. Over spring break, Deanna and Maya Cook were sophomores at Mystic Valley Regional Charter School in Malden, Massachusetts.

Over spring break, Deanna and her sister Maya got braids in their hair for the first time.

Deanna remembers her first day back at school well.

A lot of kids had changed their hairstyle that particular time after break.

There was a lot of kids who had changed their hair, like, dyed it,

and some boys who had, like, shaved their hair differently. So it wasn't, like, a big deal to,

like, the students that me and Maya had gotten our hair change, because a lot of people, for some

reason, had also done that. So we, when we wore our hair in our brains, we got a lot of compliments

...