On January 11, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Missouri’s requirement that hair braiders must have 1,500 hours of cosmetology training, most of which covers topics unrelated to hair braiding. That training includes 130 hours in hair coloring, bleaches and rinses, for example, and 110 hours in “manicuring hand and arm massage, and treatment of nails.”
Two unlicensed hair braiders from St. Louis, Ndioba Niang and Tameka Stigers, first challenged the law in 2014, arguing that this training was not relevant to their work, and that the current law requiring them to spend thousands of dollars on getting that irrelevant training violated their economic freedom. The two women had, collectively, been braiding hair professionally for over 20 years at the time they filed the lawsuit.
They are represented by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm based in Virginia. The Institute for Justice has successfully challenged similar licensing laws regarding hair braiders in 12 different previous cases over the past several years. In all of those cases, the Institute for Justice has won, or the state’s legislature has changed their laws.
“This is different, in that this is actually the first case we’ve lost,” said Dan Alban, the lead attorney on the case. In the other cases, and on the national scale, “we’ve seen a pretty dramatic change over the past several years.”
There are now only 14 states that require African-style hair braiders to have full cosmetology licenses; the others either require no license or have created a special license with different requirements for hair braiding.
“Economic liberty is a civil right protected by the U.S. Constitution,” Alban said. “Courts should not allow legislatures to require people to complete ‘needless, wasteful requirements’ in order to provide for their families. This opinion is an unfortunate example of judicial abdication. The court fails to take seriously its role in protecting the constitutional right to earn a living, and instead defers to the legislature.”
A bill just passed in the Missouri House of Representatives that would exempt African-style hair braiding from cosmetology licensing. If it passes the Senate, that will mean good news for Niang and Stigers. If it doesn’t, though, they will keep fighting.
Niang and Stigers intend to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The struggle for hair braiding freedom in Missouri is not over,” said Niang, who has offered braiding services in Florissant since 2001. “We will continue to fight for our opportunity to pursue the American dream.”
