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75 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 41 (1999-2000)
It's Not Just Hair: Historical and Cultural Considerations for an Emerging Technology

handle is hein.journals/chknt75 and id is 57 raw text is: IT'S NOT JUST HAIR: HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR AN EMERGING TECHNOLOGY DEBORAH PERGAMENT* INTRODUCTION Nothing is more indicative of the importance currently being attached to hair growth by the general populace than the barrage of cases reaching the courts evidencing the attempt by one segment of society to control the plumage of another. -Justice William 0. Douglas Justice Douglas wrote those lines twenty-five years ago during a time when the nation and the court were examining the right of the state to control the appearance and actions of individuals purposefully attempting to flaunt social conventions about gender, race, and status through both action and physical appearance.' Nothing symbolized the struggle more than the long flowing tresses of white youths identified with the hippie movement2 or the large Afro hairstyles of prominent African-American radical activists like Angela Davis. Today, social and legal issues concerning hair are reemerging. Much of the interest remains focused on the right of the state and other institutions to control individual appearance. Increasingly, however, concerns about hair focus on its use as a source of information about an individual's genetic make-up and/or health * Assistant Public Guardian, Cook County Office of the Public Guardian. J.D., Case Western Reserve University; M.L.S. and M.A., Indiana University; A.B., Mount Holyoke College. I would like to thank Lori B. Andrews, Nanette R. Elster, and Dorothy Nelkin for reading earlier drafts of this Article. I would also like to acknowledge the late Beth Fine Kaplan for providing invaluable advice and insights into the importance of hair to personal identity. The ideas and opinions contained in this Article are my own and not the official policy of the Cook County Office of the Public Guardian. 1. See Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U.S. 524, 529-30 (1973) (Douglas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (reasoning that the majority should have held that a trial judge abused its discretion when it precluded the defendant from inquiring prospective jurors about their potential prejudices against men with beards). 2. The most obvious example of the importance of hair as a social symbol during the 1960s is the critically acclaimed and popular musical salute to a curly, fuzzy, snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty, shining, gleaming, steaming, knotted, twisted, beaded, braided, powdered, flowered. bangled. tangled and spangled phenomenon called Hair. See HAIR: THE AMERICAN TRIBAL LOVE-ROCK MUSICAL (RCA VICTOR 1968).

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