A bill banning discrimination based on hair texture and style is headed to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s desk after sailing through the state Senate this week, hailed as a victory for Black women in Pennsylvania who have faced prejudice toward the way they wear their hair.
The measure amends the commonwealth’s Human Relations Act — which bans certain types of discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations — to explicitly state that the act’s prohibition on racial bias extends to hair type. The bill also clarifies that religious anti-discrimination protections include head coverings.
The bill is one of several long-running efforts by the Democratic-majority state House to strengthen or expand the protections in the Human Relations Act. Until now, those attempts to alter the act hadn’t been entertained in the Republican-controlled state Senate, with Democrats also pushing hard on bills that would add protections for LGBTQ people.
But this week, the Senate moved quickly to advance the bill on hair, dubbed the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act, or CROWN Act. Shapiro signaled his support for the measure in a social media post on Wednesday night.
Approval of the bill has become increasingly bipartisan over the years, with only eight Republicans opposed when the House passed the bill in March, and just three opposed in the Senate on Wednesday. The CROWN Act’s prime sponsor, Rep. La’Tasha D. Mayes, D-Allegheny County, spoke of concern that her own daughter would face a double standard for wearing her hair naturally as a Black woman.
“I’m teaching her to love her hair and for her to know without a shadow of a doubt that her hair is beautiful and worthy,” Mayes told the Senate State Government Committee on Monday, but “research studies show that she will face some sort of race-based hair discrimination.”
“God gave your daughter her hair; there’s no reason why anybody should be giving her a hard time,” remarked committee chair Sen. Cris Dush, R-Jefferson County.
There are several pieces of data quantifying the problem. One study commissioned by LinkedIn found that Black women’s hair was 2.5 times more likely to be perceived as unprofessional in the workplace, and 54% of Black women said they felt they had to wear their hair differently to succeed in job interviews.
A separate study at Duke University’s business school found that, among candidates who were equally qualified for a job, Black women who wore their hair naturally were viewed as less competent than white women or those who had straightened their hair.
The CROWN Act is also a longstanding priority of House Speaker Joanna McClinton, D-Philadelphia, who said in a statement Wednesday that “like many other Black women, I have felt pressured to wear my hair a certain way to meet someone else’s expectations.”
“This is a victory for everyone who joined our movement for a more equitable commonwealth where everyone is respected, treated with dignity, and can be their authentic self,” McClinton continued.
The provisions of the CROWN Act already exist in regulation, but not law. The state’s Human Relations Act empowers the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission to enforce the act, which often involves interpreting its extent.
In 2023, the commission published regulations stipulating that the act’s racial and religious protections included hair. Those regulations also found that the act’s prohibition on sex-based discrimination included gender identity and sexuality.
The hair provisions were not challenged, but earlier this year a conservative legal group filed a case in the Commonwealth Court arguing that the commission overstepped its authority with regard to the latter.
The House has passed legislation that would add gender identity and sexuality to the text of the act itself, but the Senate has not yet taken up the measure.
