10/24/2002

By JACK PERRY
projo.com staff writer

PROVIDENCE / Updated 3:48 p.m. -- St. Raphael's student Russell Gorman III can keep his hair long, a Superior Court judge ruled this morning.

School officials have no right to force Gorman, a 15-year-old sophomore, to cut his hair, Judge Stephen J. Fortunato said.

Paraphrasing a song from the rock group Pink Floyd, Fortunato said, "Leave the kids alone."

Gorman and his parents filed suit this fall after officials at the school told Gorman to cut his hair. They said Gorman's hair style, which is short on the sides but flows far down below his collar in the back, violated school policy.

"The rule is arbitrary and capricious," Fortunato said, while issuing his ruling this morning.

He pointed to Gorman's freshman year at school, saying his hair style caused no distractions or disturbances. Gorman is an honors student.

Journal file photo RUSSELL GORMAN III

This was the root of the issue: Could the school admit Gorman, with long hair, then adopt a school policy on hair style and threaten to expel him?

Fortunato's ruling suggested that officials at the co-educational Catholic school were acting like schoolyard bullies, picking on the kid with long hair.

"It must be emphasized this case is not about fashion or fashion preferences; it is about the exercise of power and whether that excercise is arbitrary and capricious," Fortunato wrote.

Brother Daniel Aubin, principal of St. Raphael's, had testified that the hair regulations were put in place to promote a culture of calmness and order, helping the school fulfill its educational mission.

Fortunato rejected that idea, writing the rule is "arbitrary and capricious because it bears no rational relation to the legitimate mission statement of the school, nor does it any ways inhibit or enhance the learning process or order and discipline at the school. In short, the length of a male student's hair is absolutely irrelevent to the educational process and culture of calm and respect that the school wishes to foster during the school day."

Indeed, he suggested that allowing children to question such roles as part of their educational mission.

"Private schools are licensed by the state to educate children in large part as they see fit, but with the express condition that they educate children to be citizens of democracy," Fortunato wrote.

"It would be anomalous indeed if people entrusted with this important mission were permitted to impose a 24-hour rule mandating a purposeless conformity to an arbitrary hair code.

"Democracy does not require -- nor has it ever required -- robots. Children protect themselves when they learn to question authority and say 'no' to the arbitrary."

The judge opened his decision by quoting a song from the musical "Hair:"

"Gimme a head with hair.

"Long beautiful hair," the song says in part.

"My hair like Jesus wore it,

"Hallelujah, I adore it..."

Fortunato noted the irony that school officials would have objected to the lengths of Jesus Christ's hair, preferring their students to keep their hair in the well-groomed style of executives from Enron and Global Crossing, two corporations that have come under scrutiny for dishonesty.

The question of a hair length regulation at a private school was a unique case, and Fortunato noted that he made his ruling without the benefit of previous decisions in Rhode Island.

Fortunato also noted that the decision does not improperly open the door for governmental meddling into the affairs of private schools. He wrote, "This decision does not in any way interfere with the curriculum of St. Raphael Academy, its mission statement, or the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church with which it is affiliated."