In a 3-0 ruling, the US Court of Appeals upheld a 2014 ruling that racial discrimination must be based on characteristics that cannot change. This decision disqualifies hairstyles as an area of racial discrimination. The case centered around Chastity Jones, a woman whose job offer was rescinded after she refused to get rid of her dreadlocks. She claims that a human resource representative told her that her hairstyle “tended to get messy”. Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan specifically noted that discrimination on the basis of black hair texture is still covered by Title VII, but that classic black hairstyles, because they are changeable, are not.
See "Appeals Court Rules Employers Can Ban Dreadlocks At Work", Taryn Finley, Huffington Post, September 23, 2016