Dakari Davis, Black Policeman with the DART Police Department in Dallas, Texas, says he is upset and confused after being told that his braided hairstyle is \u201cunprofessional\u201d by a lieutenant, which ultimately led to him being reprimanded.<\/p>\n
Davis, who began serving in law enforcement in 2019, says that he could not believe it when one of his superiors judged his ability to do his job based on his appearance.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He said a particular lieutenant \u201cfelt that it was unprofessional for male police officers to wear cornrows and contacted the Chief of Police and eventually filed a formal complaint against my hairstyle,\u201d according to\u00a0WFAA<\/a>.<\/p>\n Davis was, in fact, ordered not to wear the hairstyle while in full uniform in July 2019, documents revealed. But when he wore the hairstyle again during a DART police officer awards ceremony, an internal affairs investigation was conducted in November 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI actually decided to cut my hair out of fear of retaliation, I said, \u2018you know what, I have a son, I need to provide for them, I\u2019m just going to cut my hair,’\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n After the investigation, his \u201cbraided or cornrow hairstyle\u201d was referred to as \u201cunprofessional and unapproved.\u201d A complaint against him listed five allegations including insubordination for disobeying a direct order from a supervisor and violation of the police department\u2019s dress code policy.<\/p>\n Davis was then placed on administrative leave and he received a recommendation for termination and a letter of reprimand. Davis, who always dreamed to protect and serve, said he became depressed at that time.<\/p>\n He eventually reached out to Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, who thankfully supported him. The letter of reprimand was rescinded in September 2020 and a notice was sent to the Chief of Police from\u00a0DART\u2019s Chief Operating Officer, Carol Wise. He was also put back to his full assignment as a motorcycle officer without restrictions.<\/p>\n Most recently, DART has been reviewing its appearance policy, stating that it is done as \u201ctimes change, people have different desires.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe understand that you want to be able to work your job, also you want to be able to present a bit of yourself and to present yourself in a particular way,\u201d said\u00a0Gordon Shattles, DART Director of External Relations.<\/p>\n While Davis is relieved that there have been more discussions regarding the issue, he said it is also important to acknowledge the underlying bias about hairstyles in the workplace.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you know me and I wear this uniform and stand right beside you and you view me in that manner, what does that say about you and how you view someone who doesn\u2019t wear this uniform?\u201d Davis asked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dakari Davis, Black Policeman with the DART Police Department in Dallas, Texas, says he is upset and confused after being told that his braided hairstyle is \u201cunprofessional\u201d by a lieutenant, which ultimately led to him being reprimanded. Davis, who began serving in law enforcement in 2019, says that he could not believe it when one Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2148,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[860,1],"tags":[889,888],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2143"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2147,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions\/2147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}