Virginia black-college business-school dean stands by decade-old ban on cornrows, dreadlocks
On the basis that men with cornrows and dreadlock are not ‘businesslike,’ the business school dean at Virginia’s Hampton University, a historically black school, has banned the hairstyles in a seminar for M.B.A. students.
A university dean in Virginia is sticking by a school ban on cornrows and dreadlocks on the basis that the strict hair policy helps students land jobs.
The ban at Hampton University, a historically black school, applies only to male business students taking a seminar that’s part of the school’s five-year M.B.A. program, ABC affiliate WVEC reports.
“We’ve been very successful,” Business School Dean Sid Credle told the station. “We’ve placed more than 99 percent of the students who have graduated from this school, this program [in corporate jobs].”
Despite the ban’s longstanding controversy — it’s been in place since 2001 — Credle says the hair policy has nothing to do with black culture.
“When was it that cornrows and dreadlocks were a part of African-American history?” he said. “I mean, Charles Drew didn’t wear it, Muhammad Ali didn’t wear it, Martin Luther King didn’t wear it.”
Credle says business students should look like businessmen.
“If you’re going to play baseball, you wear baseball uniforms,” he told WVEC. “If you’re going to play tennis, you wear [a] tennis uniform. Well, you’re playing that business.”
Credle refused to comment when reached by the Daily News.
Not all students agree with the school’s hair policy — but at least one says there’s an easy fix.
“I would just find another major,” said incoming freshman Uriah Bethea, who has dreadlocks.
“I don’t think it should matter,” Bethea told WVEC. “It’s my life. I should be able to do whatever I want to do.”
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