Black Texas Student’s Hair Suspension Prompts Mootness Question

A Black student that a Texas high school suspended for refusing to cut his hair may be out of legal remedies now that he left the school, some justices on a state appeals court suggested Wednesday.

The absence of future harm to Darryl George may leave unresolved the question of whether a Houston-area district violated a state law protecting hairstyles associated with race.

“It’s not backward looking,” Justice Veronica Rivas-Molloy of the Court of Appeals, First District said, during oral arguments.

The question of mootness dominated portions of a hearing that was scheduled for 40 minutes but, due to an ...