Illinois has expanded protections for students who wear hairstyles or facial hair according to sincerely held religious beliefs. The new law applies to public schools and covered nonreligious private schools while preserving limited safety rules and an exemption for sectarian schools.
Editorial Note
This article examines Illinois Senate Bill 3361, known as the Religious Hair and Facial Hair Protections Act and the Jett Hawkins Law. The legislation was signed by Governor J.B. Pritzker on July 31, 2026, and was written to take effect immediately.
The protections do not apply identically to every school. Public schools and covered nonreligious private schools face new restrictions on grooming policies, while nonpublic sectarian schools are exempt from this specific requirement. This article is provided for general educational and informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice.
Illinois Expands Protection for Religious Hair Practices
Illinois has strengthened protections for students who wear their hair or facial hair according to sincerely held religious beliefs, observances, or practices.
Senate Bill 3361 prevents public-school dress codes from prohibiting religious hairstyles, hair-related religious practices, and facial hair. It also requires covered nonreligious private schools seeking registration or recognition through the Illinois State Board of Education to provide assurances that they will not prohibit those practices for students or employees.
The law identifies uncut hair, religious sidelocks known as payot or peyos, beards, mustaches, and other forms of facial hair as examples of protected practices. Those examples are illustrative rather than exhaustive, meaning the protection is not limited to a specific religion or predetermined list of hairstyles.
One of the law’s most important changes is that families no longer have to begin by requesting a special religious exception from an otherwise applicable grooming rule. In covered schools, religious hair receives statutory protection from the beginning rather than only after a parent submits a written objection.
The measure does not eliminate school dress codes or prevent administrators from responding to genuine safety concerns. It instead establishes clearer limits on how appearance rules may be applied when a student’s hair carries religious significance.
What the Law Protects
The legislation defines religious hairstyles and related practices broadly. The protection covers the length, arrangement, maintenance, wearing, or display of head hair and facial hair when connected to a student’s sincerely held religious beliefs, observance, or practice.
This language recognizes that hair can represent more than personal preference or fashion. Depending on the individual, it may reflect spiritual discipline, cultural continuity, family tradition, religious identity, or a perceived obligation of faith.
The law provides examples such as uncut hair, sidelocks, beards, and mustaches without suggesting that every member of a particular religion follows the same practice. Religious observance can vary among individuals, families, communities, and denominations.
School officials should therefore avoid relying on assumptions about what a student’s religion supposedly requires. A practice does not necessarily lose protection because other members of the same faith wear their hair differently.
At the same time, the law connects protection to a sincerely held religious belief, observance, or practice. It does not transform every personal hairstyle choice into a religious claim. When legitimate questions arise, administrators should address them respectfully and privately rather than beginning with discipline or public confrontation.
Protection No Longer Begins With a Parent’s Petition
Before this change, Illinois law allowed families to object to school uniform or dress-code requirements on religious grounds. The process generally depended on a parent or guardian submitting a signed statement explaining the religious objection.
That framework offered a path toward accommodation, but it placed the initial burden on the family. A student could first be told that the hairstyle violated school rules and then have to wait for a parent to submit paperwork before receiving an exception.
The new law reverses that starting point for covered religious hair practices. A public school’s dress code cannot include or apply to protected religious hairstyles or facial hair merely because the family has not yet filed a separate request.
This matters because grooming disputes often occur without warning. A student may be approached by a teacher, principal, coach, laboratory instructor, or activity sponsor who expects immediate compliance with an appearance rule. Younger students may not know how to explain the practice or may feel uncomfortable challenging an adult’s direction.
Under the new approach, the school should consider whether the hairstyle may be religiously protected before issuing discipline, denying attendance, removing the student from an activity, or demanding a permanent change.
Families may still communicate with schools to prevent misunderstandings, especially when uniforms, safety equipment, athletics, performances, or technical courses are involved. Communication can help resolve practical concerns, but it should not be treated as the event that creates the underlying protection.
Schools May Still Address Genuine Safety Risks
Illinois did not remove the authority of schools to address specific health or safety dangers.
The law allows a school to require hair or facial hair to be secured, covered, or otherwise controlled during a particular activity when necessary to prevent danger to the student or another person. Any restriction must use the least restrictive practicable approach and cannot require cutting, shaving, or another permanent alteration.
This provision could matter in laboratories, culinary programs, technical education courses, workshops, health-care training, athletics, theater productions, and activities involving machinery, open flames, chemicals, protective equipment, food preparation, or physical contact.
A student with long uncut hair, for example, could be required to secure or cover it while operating machinery. A school could also require a safe method of controlling facial hair or using suitable protective equipment during an activity with a documented risk.
The law encourages problem-solving rather than permanent conformity. Administrators should consider whether a tie, wrap, covering, guard, equipment adjustment, modified uniform, or reasonable alternative can address the danger without forcing the student to violate a religious practice.
A preference for neatness or uniform appearance is not the same as a safety requirement. Schools should be prepared to identify the specific risk, explain why a temporary measure is necessary, and show that less restrictive options were considered.
Public Schools Should Review More Than Their Handbooks
Illinois public-school districts should review student dress codes, uniform policies, athletic rules, extracurricular requirements, graduation guidance, laboratory procedures, and career and technical education standards.
A policy may appear neutral because it applies to everyone but still conflict with the new law. Rules requiring hair to remain above the collar, banning all facial hair, prohibiting indoor head coverings, or requiring students to be clean-shaven may interfere with religious practices.
Districts should not assume that a general statement allowing religious accommodations is sufficient. The revised law changes the starting presumption by protecting covered religious hair directly, rather than treating it as an exception granted only after a family asks.
Implementation will also require staff training. Principals, teachers, coaches, activity sponsors, security employees, laboratory instructors, and substitute teachers may be responsible for enforcing appearance rules. A legally accurate district policy offers limited protection when the adults applying it do not understand the change.
Schools should create a quick and respectful process for addressing uncertainty. Students should not be removed from class or publicly questioned about religion while administrators decide how the law applies. When additional information is needed, discussions should focus on resolving the issue without humiliation or unnecessary disruption.
Covered Nonreligious Private Schools Must Also Respond
The legislation extends beyond traditional public schools.
Nonpublic schools seeking voluntary registration or recognition through the Illinois State Board of Education must provide assurances of compliance with certain state requirements. Under the new law, covered nonreligious private schools must assure the state that they will not prohibit protected religious hairstyles, hair-related practices, or facial hair worn by students or employees.
Illinois already required covered nonpublic schools to address hairstyles historically associated with race, ethnicity, or hair texture, including braids, locks, and twists. Senate Bill 3361 adds religious hairstyles and facial hair to that framework.
The racial and religious protections may overlap, but they address different legal concerns. A student’s hairstyle may carry racial, cultural, religious, personal, or combined significance. Schools should not require families to reduce that identity to one narrow category before treating the student fairly.
The employee protection in the nonpublic-school registration provisions is also significant. Covered schools should review staff handbooks and workplace grooming requirements rather than limiting their policy review to students.
Private status does not place a school completely outside state regulation. Illinois may establish requirements connected to registration, recognition, health, safety, attendance, and nondiscrimination while still acknowledging that private schools operate differently from public districts.
Sectarian Schools Are Treated Differently
The law includes a specific exemption for nonpublic sectarian schools.
A sectarian school that is registered, seeking registration, recognized, or seeking recognition is not subject to the new requirements restricting its ability to adopt or enforce policies involving religious hairstyles, hair-related practices, or facial hair.
This means a faith-based school retains broader authority under this particular law to establish appearance standards connected to its institutional identity, even when a student follows a different religious tradition.
The exemption may create difficult choices for families. A student whose religious hairstyle is protected in a public or nonreligious private school may encounter a different policy at a sectarian institution.
That does not mean religious schools are exempt from every contract, civil-rights rule, enrollment promise, or other legal obligation. It means Senate Bill 3361 does not impose the same religious-hair restrictions on those schools that it applies elsewhere.
Families considering sectarian education should review grooming standards before enrolling. Schools should also explain those expectations clearly rather than leaving families to discover a conflict after paying fees, purchasing uniforms, or beginning the academic year.
Transparency protects both parties. Parents can make informed choices, while schools can reduce disputes over expectations that might otherwise emerge after enrollment.
How the New Law Builds on Earlier Illinois Protections
Illinois previously adopted protections against school policies targeting hairstyles historically associated with race, ethnicity, or hair texture.
Those reforms became known as the Jett Hawkins Law after a student whose experience helped draw attention to hair discrimination in schools. Senate Bill 3361 formally states that the new measure may be referred to as both the Religious Hair and Facial Hair Protections Act and the Jett Hawkins Law.
The 2026 measure expands the state’s policy direction by addressing religious significance more directly. It recognizes that grooming rules can burden students for different but sometimes overlapping reasons.
A hairstyle may be associated with racial identity, religious observance, cultural heritage, or more than one of those characteristics. Facial hair may also have spiritual meaning even when it is not closely connected to racial hair texture.
The expanded law should make it harder for a covered school to enforce a general appearance rule first and consider the student’s protected identity only after discipline has occurred.
What School Leaders Should Do Now
School leaders should begin with a focused policy audit. Language governing hair length, facial hair, head coverings, clean-shaven requirements, uniforms, athletics, performances, laboratories, technical programs, and graduation attire should be examined for possible conflicts.
The next step is practical employee guidance. Staff should understand what the law protects, how the sectarian-school exemption works, when a safety restriction may be appropriate, and why cutting or shaving cannot be treated as the first solution in a covered school.
Administrators should also distinguish between safety and tradition. A rule should not be labeled a safety policy simply because it has existed for years or because it promotes visual uniformity. Restrictions must respond to an identifiable risk connected to a specific activity.
When safety equipment creates a conflict, schools should investigate alternative equipment, coverings, adjustments, or assignments. Any limitation should be no broader or longer than necessary.
Schools should document how decisions are made and apply comparable standards consistently. A transparent process protects students while helping districts explain why a particular temporary safety measure was required.
What Families and Students Should Know
Students in Illinois public schools and covered nonreligious private schools generally should not be disciplined merely because they maintain their hair or facial hair according to a sincere religious practice.
Families can still reduce misunderstandings by notifying the school before the student enters an activity with strict uniform, equipment, or safety requirements. That communication may be useful, but it should not be described as a request for permission to receive a protection already provided by law.
When a disagreement occurs, families should preserve the relevant handbook language, emails, disciplinary notices, team rules, photographs, and explanations provided by school officials. They may also ask the school to identify the exact policy being applied and explain how it complies with Senate Bill 3361.
When administrators cite safety, families can ask what specific risk exists, why the restriction is limited to that activity, and whether a covering, wrap, tie, guard, or equipment modification could address the concern.
Students and parents considering a sectarian private school should review its appearance rules carefully. The new Illinois protection does not apply to those institutions in the same manner.
A New To Education Perspective
Dress codes can support order, safety, and a productive educational environment. They should not force students to abandon sincere religious practices simply because a school has traditionally preferred a uniform appearance.
Illinois has adopted a reasonable general principle: protected religious hair should be recognized automatically in covered schools, while genuine safety risks may still be addressed through the least restrictive practicable measure.
That is a stronger educational approach than requiring a student to violate a rule, face embarrassment, and then ask adults to reconsider. Young people should not need advanced knowledge of education law to defend their identity while standing in a principal’s office or being questioned before classmates.
The sectarian-school exemption also shows that education choices can involve tradeoffs. A faith-based school may offer an educational environment grounded in religion while maintaining institutional standards that differ from a family’s own practices. Those differences should be disclosed clearly so parents can decide whether the school is an appropriate fit.
The law’s success will ultimately depend on implementation. Students experience policy through interactions with teachers, coaches, administrators, and activity leaders—not through legislative language alone. Respectful enforcement requires training, precise safety standards, private conversations, and a willingness to solve practical problems without treating religious difference as misconduct.
Key Takeaways
Illinois Senate Bill 3361 strengthens protection for religious hairstyles, hair-related practices, and facial hair in public schools and covered nonreligious private schools.
The law includes examples such as uncut hair, payot or peyos, beards, and mustaches, but its protection is not limited to those examples or to a predetermined list of religions.
Students in covered public schools no longer have to begin with a special parental petition before their religious hair receives protection under school dress-code rules.
Schools may require hair to be temporarily secured, covered, or controlled during a specific activity when necessary for safety, but they must use the least restrictive practicable approach and cannot require cutting or shaving.
Nonpublic sectarian schools are exempt from this specific restriction and retain broader authority over their appearance policies.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the new Illinois law protect?
It protects hairstyles, hair-related religious practices, and facial hair maintained, worn, or displayed according to a student’s sincerely held religious beliefs, observance, or practice.
Which schools are covered?
The dress-code protections apply to Illinois public schools, including Chicago schools governed by local school councils. Related requirements apply to covered nonreligious private schools seeking registration or recognition through the state.
Must parents submit an accommodation request first?
The revised law protects religious hair directly in covered public-school dress codes. Families may still communicate with administrators when clarification or a safety arrangement is necessary.
Can a school require long hair to be secured?
Yes, during a specific activity when necessary to prevent a genuine health or safety danger. The measure must be the least restrictive practicable option and cannot require permanent alteration.
Does the law apply to employees?
The nonpublic-school registration and recognition provisions address religious hairstyles and facial hair worn by both students and employees at covered schools.
Does the law apply to Catholic or other sectarian schools?
Nonpublic sectarian schools are exempt from this specific religious-hair requirement. Their appearance policies may therefore differ from those of public and nonreligious private schools.
Does the law eliminate school dress codes?
No. Schools may continue using uniforms and dress codes, but covered policies cannot prohibit or be applied against protected religious hair practices.
Final Thoughts
Illinois’ expanded protections recognize that hair can carry personal, cultural, and religious meaning beyond appearance alone.
The law gives students in covered schools clearer protection while preserving the ability of educators to address specific safety concerns. Its least-restrictive standard encourages practical solutions instead of forcing students to permanently change their appearance.
The exemption for sectarian schools remains an important limitation. Families choosing religious education should examine whether a school’s grooming rules accommodate practices associated with other faith traditions.
For public districts and covered private schools, the immediate priority is implementation. Policies should be revised, employees should be trained, and questions should be handled without unnecessary discipline or embarrassment.
Religious freedom should not depend on whether a student knows how to draft an accommodation request before an adult enforces a grooming rule.
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Sources
Illinois General Assembly — Senate Bill 3361 Enrolled Text
Illinois General Assembly — Senate Bill 3361 Status and Legislative Summary
https://ilga.gov/Legislation/BillStatus?DocNum=3361&DocTypeID=SB&GAID=18&LegID=166238&SessionID=114
Illinois General Assembly — Senate Amendment 1, Including Sectarian-School and Safety Provisions
New Illinois Law Protects Religious Hairstyles in Public and Nonreligious Schools
https://www.theintelligencer.com/news/article/illinois-religious-hairstyle-law-schools-22373410.php
