A hair color code is being strictly applied in almost half of all secondary schools operated by the Tokyo metropolitan government.
Students who attend classes with wavy hair or wicks that are not uniformly black must present a document signed by their parents or guardians stating that it is their natural aspect.
The policy was adopted by more than 40% of these schools in the metropolitan area, according to members of the Japanese Communist Party of the Tokyo metropolitan assembly who questioned the edict.
The issue of school regulations covering hair color is something that has reached the courts and sparked international interest in the rigid system that governs Japanese schools to encourage conformity.
The JCP, feeling that the issue violated human rights, sent a request for disclosure of information and was rewarded with a pile of documents delivered by the Tokyo Metropolitan Council of Education.
Of the 177 metropolitan high schools for full-time students, 150, or 84.7%, had some kind of regulation regarding hair. Seventy-nine schools, or 44.6% of the total, asked students to hand in signed and sealed documents by their parents certifying that they were born with a natural curl in their hair or a color other than black.
According to the documents, some schools even asked for pictures of certain students when they attended elementary or high school to confirm the veracity of the data provided. In other cases, students were asked to provide documents from their doctors that support their claims about the natural state of their hair.
Some schools have invalidated the documents if the student had dyed their hair at least once or had a permanent hairdresser.
Some schools used a color scale so that students could classify their hair color.
Education board officials insisted that the documents were necessary to avoid situations in which teachers scold students about their hair based on misperceptions.
They added that notices were sent to individual schools asking them to explain to students and their parents that sending documents was entirely voluntary.
However, a study by the JCP bloc at the Tokyo metropolitan assembly found that only five high schools were keen to state that this was the case.
“Registering a student’s hair color is a violation of human rights similar to asking him to register his skin color,” said a member of the JCP. “It is a natural right to have the hair the student was born with and it is not something that has to be approved by others.”