| Hair today, gone tomorrow
ACLU Probes Six Flags Hairstyle Ban
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The American Civil Liberties Union is investigating complaints from more than a dozen black employees at a Six Flags theme park who were told their hairstyles were inappropriate.
Jonathan DeLeon, 17, was hired at Six Flags America in Largo, Md., in March to wear the costumes of Sylvester and Daffy Duck. A few weeks later, he said he was told to cut his braids, which were at least 3 feet long.
Though his mother cut more than 2 feet of his hair, park officials were dissatisfied, he said.
"They told me I had to cut them even shorter or go home," DeLeon told The Washington Post. "They said they wanted an all-American thing. That's what they said to all the black people. I had already cut it a lot, so I just left."
The 2006 Six Flags America handbook states that employees are not allowed to have "any hairstyle that detracts or takes away from Six Flags theming."
Terry Prather, the park's general manager, said that the policy is not discriminatory and that exceptions are made for employees with religious and medical reasons for not cutting their hair.
Some employees said they tried to adjust by buying wigs to cover their hair or by paying to have their hair braided into cornrows, but they too were told that the hairstyles were inappropriate. | 
