Discriminating against someone based on their hair texture is a type of racism. Telling a woman of color that her natural hair looks “unkempt” or she needs to “tidy” her natural hair up is a perfect example. The lack of acceptance for a race due to the differing characteristic of hair texture black women have encourages assimilation.

At a South African all-girls high school, known as Pretoria High School for Girls, several black girls admitted to experiencing discrimination on a daily basis from their white peers and instructors due to the way they wore their natural hair.

Pretoria High School for Girls has strict rules about the general appearance for their students, in which they address and regulate how hair can be worn. The school’s policy states “All hair must be brushed… Hair buns must be tight with no loose hair and have to be worn in the neck… Cornrows, natural dreadlocks and single/braids (with or without extensions) are allowed, provided they are a maximum of 10-mm in diameter… Cornrows must run parallel… no patterned cornrows.”

For years, many Pretoria school girls have expressed their concern over these policies and how they interfere with their schooling. One girl said that her afro was compared to a “birds nest” by one of her instructors, another was interrupted during her speech in front of a class and sent to sit in the headmaster’s office because her hair was “uncontrollable.”

Not only does the South African school’s hair policies disrupt the education of the black students, it also belittles the black children because their instructors and white peers racially profile them due to their hair.

As of Monday, Aug. 29, 2016, the girls at Pretoria High School took a stance and protested against the school’s policies, when they learned one of the peers was facing suspension because her hair was “uncontrollable.” The protest, which lasted a week and stopped the school’s operation, caught attention on social media in which people stood behind the Pretoria Girls in their fight for racial justice.

Social media sites like Twitter and Instagram aided in bringing awareness to issues of racial discrimination that goes beyond hair. Many students of Pretoria shared their experience of being talked down to by teachers because of the way they looked in appearance. Teachers openly discriminated against the black girls at Pretoria, which made it okay for the white girls to do the same. Each Tweet ended with the hashtag, #StopRacisimAtPretoriaGirlsHigh which raised awareness for a petition to eradicate the school’s appearance policy which called for hair to be “neat” and “tidy.”

The Pretoria Girls High petition has had over 25,000 signatures, as reported by BBC, and caught the attention of the head of Gauteng Province’s education department who has suspended the code of conduct clause on hairstyles which then brought the protest to an end. Though the protest has ended, the issue of racial discrimination due to the differing characteristics of other individuals still prevails not only in South Africa, but worldwide.