Chesley Karr v. Clifford Schmidt

Background

The dispute involves El Paso school authorities who adopted a rule that boys’ hair must not hang over the ears or the top of a dress shirt collar or obstruct vision. After hearings, a federal district court found that rule violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections and issued an injunction stopping enforcement. The school authorities won a stay of that injunction from the Court of Appeals, and students asked the Justice assigned to the Fifth Circuit to vacate that stay as an emergency matter.

Reasoning

The central question was whether federal courts should be allowed to stop local schools from enforcing hair-length rules under the Constitution. The Justice refused to say federal courts have the authority to supervise such local school policies. He noted the Fourteenth Amendment contains a direct prohibition against racial discrimination in schools, but it contains no similar direct command about hair length. Emphasizing federalism and practical competence, he said it would be hard to conclude that the federal judiciary is better suited than local school officials or state legislatures to set haircut rules. He also rejected the suggestion that this hair-length dispute constitutes a national emergency. For those reasons, he denied the students’ emergency motion.

Real world impact

As a practical matter, the denial leaves the appeals court’s stay in place so El Paso schools may continue enforcing the hair rule while the legal challenge proceeds. This was an emergency procedural ruling, not a final decision on the constitutional merits, so the outcome could change on further appellate review.