Will nurse leaders help eradicate 'hair racism' from nursing and health services?

Nurse managers play key roles in creating and enforcing organisational hair policies and practices. This challenging paper will provoke discussion, debate and hopefully the dismantling of racist hair policies that disproportionately target black students and nurses.

Black people have suffered from centuries of hair racism that continues today. Unfortunately, many nurse leaders underestimate the significance of this issue, while perpetuating the injustice.

This paper is based on research literature, media reports and authors' lived experiences regarding hair racism experienced by black people and nurses in particular.

Nurse managers often create and police organisational hair policies and dress codes. As health services pledge to eradicate racism 'in principle', ending discriminatory hair policies offers nurse managers a practical way to make this principle a reality.

Hair racism is real and damaging for many black nurses and has no place in a modern health service. Rather than designing and policing such structural racism, nurse managers can be instrumental in ending it.

Health service hair policies targeting black nurses especially are not 'neutral'. Nurse managers can challenge this institutional discrimination, demonstrating health services' commitment to ending racism in all of its guises.