CFP: Weaving it All Together: Hair, Health, Law, and Policy

Weaving it All Together: Hair, Health, Law, and Policy

Inaugural symposium examining the intersections between hair, health, law, and policy

Expressions of interest due: May 5, 2025

Program dates: Friday, September 25 - Saturday, September 26, 2025

Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law, Philadelphia, PA

The Drexel Kline Law Review in conjunction with the Drexel Kline Center for Law, Policy, & Social Action and the Drexel Kline Health Law Program is pleased to announce the first symposium examining the intersections between hair, health, law, and policy. This ground-breaking symposium will take place on Friday, September 25, and Saturday, September 26, 2025, at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In innumerable ways, hair matters. Significantly, hair is connected to our identity formation and expression, exercise of freedom, educational access, professional prospects, economic security, as well as our health and well-being. As a consequence, hair influences society, law, policy, advocacy, and movements—contemporarily, historically, domestically and internationally.

This dynamic symposium, “Weaving it All Together: Hair, Health, Law, and Policy,” will explore these intersections. We invite paper and/or full panel proposals on any topic related to studies, litigation, legislation, public policy, organizational policy, advocacy, and movements linked to hair, health, and well-being. Such topics might include, but are not limited to:

• historical, contemporary, and/or comparative perspectives on hair and its significance to technology, law, policy, society, and social movements;
• civil and human rights litigation governing hair discrimination in workplaces, schools, law enforcement, public accommodations, prisons and other domains;
• hair bias, discrimination, health and well-being;
• the C.R.O.W.N. Act and other civil and human rights legislation governing hair discrimination in workplaces, schools, and other domains;
• grooming policies, appearance or aesthetic discrimination, and their harms to health and well-being;
• grooming policies and discrimination on the basis of age, disability, class, gender, race, national origin, color, religion and/or other identities, and their health-related consequences;
• the role of collective organizing and organizational policy to address appearance, aesthetic, or grooming codes discrimination and its harms on health and well-being;
• the state of local, state, and federal regulation to address hair bias and discrimination;
• the state of local, state, and/or federal regulatory bodies to address harms of hair and personal care products;
• the role of consumer protection legislation and policy;
• the role of international human rights law, theory, and movements;
• the implications of recent federal constitutional litigation, federal executive action, and federal legislation on relevant research, education, law, policy, and movements;
• history of educational curricula in cosmetology schools and current efforts to ensure proficiency in and holistic care of diverse hair textures;
• the (de)regulation of professional licensure and health and safety inspections within hair care and beauty industries and its consequences;
• environmental justice movements relevant to hair, health, and well-being;
• economic justice movements relevant to hair, health, and well-being;
• technology, hair, health, law, and policy;
• the role of media, marketing, advertising and entertainment industries;
• chemical relaxer litigation;
• corporate responsibility for harms resulting from ingredients in hair and personal care products;
• the role of STEM research, education, and professionals to prevent or redress health harms resulting from hair products and technologies;
• the role of private law in preventing or redressing individual and systemic harms;
• scientific research on hair technologies, hair and personal care products, and their health consequences;
• law, policy, and/or collective organizing that address the health and well-being of workers in hair-care, beauty, and appearance enhancement professions; or
• coalition-building and collaboration to increase public awareness, policy and legal reforms in the U.S. and/or abroad.

We welcome presentations that propose action-oriented or social-impact interventions relevant to the theme. Interdisciplinary approaches, linking subject matter to themes in art, literature, history, and the social sciences, among others, are welcome. Presentations that employ comparative and/or intersectional approaches are also encouraged. Participants can be academics, practitioners, government officials, policy researchers, economists, graduate students, grassroots organizers, activists, product researchers or developers, health-equity specialists, health-care professionals, hair-care professionals, journalists, or others with relevant expertise or experience with the subject matter. Contributors from the United States as well as other countries are welcome.

Those interested in participating in the conference are asked to submit 300 word abstracts of paper proposals, 300 word abstracts of the presentation proposal, or 1,000 word panel proposals, including brief descriptions of the papers or presentations on the panel, to Executive Editor of Symposium Molly Kernis at [email protected] by Monday, May 5, 2025. Submissions should indicate if there is interest in publishing a paper with the Drexel Kline Law Review, as publication opportunities will be available to selected presenters.

Applicants will be notified before June 1, 2025. Selected participants will be expected to circulate draft papers no later than August 27, 2025. Final papers will be due October 27, 2025.

If you have symposium-related questions, you may also contact Professor D. Wendy Greene, Director of the Drexel Kline Center for Law, Policy, and Social Action ([email protected]).

For those presenting during the symposium, the sponsor will cover lodging and selected meal costs. If a participant is unable to obtain reimbursement from their home institution for travel, such expenses may be covered should funds become available. The organizers will work to ensure that cost is not a barrier to participation for contributors working on issues related to the symposium topic.

We eagerly anticipate hearing from prospective participants and are enthusiastic about facilitating enriching conversations and collaborations during this special symposium.

Molly Kernis, Executive Editor of the Drexel Kline Law Review Symposium (2025)

Professor D. Wendy Greene, Director, Drexel Kline Center for Law, Policy and Social Action

Professor Liz Kukura, Drexel Kline Health Law Program Faculty