Gone But Not Forgotten

NU College of Law's reputation suffered from its discrimination against long-haired student

Jeremy Patrick (jhaeman@hotmail.com)

February 01, 2000

Perhaps you remember the story of Thayne Glenn, a former student of the NU College of Law. The story is brief: The University of Nebraska forbids discrimination on the basis of personal characteristics; the law school denied him entrance into a program because his hair was too long. The law school violated the University's nondiscrimination policy.

The facts are simple, the reasoning almost syllogistic. If the length of one's hair isn't a "personal characteristic," I cannot imagine what one is. This should have been an easy call for the law school, right?

Not for this one. When we brought you the story last year, my predecessor at the Daily Nebraskan predicted that the law school would adopt a "Delay Until May (DUM)" strategy. That is, the College of Law would put off making a decision as long as possible, waiting until the student involved had graduated, and the rest of us had forgotten about it.

Truer words have never been spoken - the law school did exactly that.

The story of Thayne Glenn and his long-hair incident was first reported in the middle of January. The law school took no action until a meeting on Feb. 9 where "nothing was resolved." Then it waited to discuss the issue until April 2, when a motion to allow Glenn into the program was tabled.

Finally, on April 20, 1999, the law school faculty voted down a motion to affirm the University's nondiscrimination policy. Of course, this meeting took place during the very last week of classes, long after it would have been possible to allow Glenn to enter the program and receive credit.

Coincidence?

The matter was finally put to rest in August, after Glenn had graduated, and most law students had gone home for the summer. The law school Delayed Until May and the problem went away ... But we haven't forgotten.

There never was an official statement as to why Glenn's hair was such a problem. It was surmised that Lancaster County Attorney Gary Lacey (the individual responsible for the discrimination) felt that juries might react negatively to seeing a long-haired prosecutor.
I suppose it's possible - juries are often irrational. But it's much more likely that a jury would react negatively to seeing a black or female prosecutor, and that's certainly not grounds to bar one from the program. In fact, long-haired lawyers practice in courtrooms all across Nebraska, and there's never been evidence that they fare poorly compared to their short-haired brethren.

Of course, Lacey didn't commit a crime. Hair length isn't a protected category in state or federal nondiscrimination laws. But he did violate a clear university policy, and a majority of the law school faculty let him do it.

This is a great example of the problem inherent in having a policy or law enforced by the very same people whose conduct it is intended to limit. The policy was intended to control the behavior of faculty. It was unambiguously meant to forbid discrimination based on arbitrary factors unrelated to merit - such as hair length. In this case, the faculty got to decide for itself whether it was discriminating or not. The result is not surprising.

The faculty who voted to allow this discrimination to continue come mostly from a generation where long hair was viewed as unprofessional and a badge of the "freaky people." These faculty members weren't necessarily being malevolent. But good people can make bad decisions, and this entire incident is an example.

I suppose it's over though, and we should just let it drop. The law school and the county attorney won. They succeeded in keeping one highly-qualified, long-haired student out of a law school program.

And they also succeeded in losing our respect.

© 2001 Daily Nebraskan Online (www.dailyneb.com)