The Crown Act continues to gain momentum around the country. But that hasn’t stopped people of color from having to fight for their right to wear their hair in natural, culturally significant styles. The latest comes from a New Jersey police officer suing the township where she works and its police captain, claiming discrimination against her natural protective hairstyle.
Officer Chian Weekes-Rivera filed a lawsuit last week, alleging Maplewood Township, NJ punished her for “having Black hair.” The officer claims that just over a week after showing up to work wearing Bantu knots, Internal Affairs informed her that she’d violated the department’s on-duty dress code. Weekes-Rivera’s suit goes on to say that her sergeants were also implicated, charged with “failure to supervise.”
Officer Weekes-Rivera says her treatment by the township violates the State of New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination, which ‘prohibits unlawful employment discrimination based on an individual’s race, creed, color.”
Like cornrows, Bantu knots are a popular protective hairstyle with centuries-old roots in African tradition. But according to NBC News, Captain Kuenzel told Officer Weekes-Rivera she’d violated the dress code by showing up to work with her hair in rollers. Although she’s maintained her position in the department, Weekes-Rivera is concerned that the infraction could stand in the way of her chances of promotion.
“To get that paper, it was cringeworthy,” Weekes-Rivera told NBC News. “I had to ask him questions to stop myself from crying.”
“Maplewood is trying to send a chilling message to the entire department that not only are we going to discriminate against Chian, we are going to hold other people accountable for not discriminating against her,” said Weekes-Rivera’s attorney, John Coyle.
As of this writing, NBC News reports that Maplewood Township, the police department and police captain Peter Kuenzel have yet to speak publicly about the case.