On April 11, 2022, U.S. Virgin Islands Governor Albert Bryan Jr. signed into law Act No. 8553, “The Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act of 2022” or “The Virgin Islands Crown Act of 2022,” which prohibits discrimination based on hair texture or hairstyle.
The act amends the Virgin Islands Civil Rights Act (VICRA), which prohibits discrimination in employment, as well as with respect to public accommodations and with respect to rental transactions, on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin. The act states that “‘[r]ace’ includes traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to hair texture, hair type or and [sic] protective hairstyles.” The act defines the term “[p]rotective hairstyle” as “hair characteristics, hair texture and hairstyles that include but are not limited to, such hairstyles as braids, locks, twists, cornrows, Bantu knots, Afros, and other styles in which the hair is tightly coiled or tightly curled.”
The act expands the VICRA to prohibit the exclusion of any individual “from participation in” or from receiving “the benefits of any program or activity of a college, university, or other postsecondary institution, or a public system of higher education[,] or an elementary or secondary education system or vocational or career technology education, or other school system” based upon race as defined by the act. The act also prohibits discrimination under “any program or activity of any school or...
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