Detroit, USA - A public charter school is being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union after suspending a 14-year-old student for wearing his hair long.
Claudius Benson II was suspended after being enrolled in Detroit's Old Redford Academy for three days this semester.
School officials claim his Afro puff hair style violates its strict dress code, the Detroit Free Press reported Wednesday.
The 14-year-old has not had a hair cut in more than a decade because his family follows Jewish traditions and Old Testament passages prohibiting it, his mother Alecha Benson said.
The school has refused Alecha Benson's requests to reinstate her son, according to The Detroit News.
The ACLU filed its suit Tuesday in Wayne County Circuit Court, claiming the school violated the student's Constitutional right to religious expression. The lawsuit also asks that the school grant Benson a religious accommodation and remove the suspension from his record.
"Students should never have to choose between remaining faithful to their religion and getting an education," Michigan ACLU executive director Kary L. Moss said.
The school's lawyer, Joseph Urban, is seeking to have the case transferred to federal court. He said Old Redford Academy also wants to verify whether Benson truly has a religious prohibition against cutting his hair.
Old Redford Academy's requirement that male students wear their hair short also was challenged earlier this year by the ACLU.
A circuit court judge ordered the school in April to reinstate a 10-year-old honor student who had been expelled. The boy's father said his son's hair never was longer than a half-inch.