Wearing braids in school now OK for Native American boy

America's south is still fucked up. School rules in the Needville Independent School District requires boys to keep their hair short -- which was a problem for a five-year-old kindergarten student of Native American heritage. His hair is short. His parents asked for an exception to the rules, siting cultural and religious reasons. School officials refused to budge. When the boy attended school with his long hair anyway, he was suspended. It took a lawsuit to force the Texas school district to do the right thing. Why did it have to go that far?