Physical Wellness

Eight-Year-Old Boy with Alopecia Suspended from School Because His Hair Is Too Long

By Makini Brice | Update Date: May 06, 2013 12:36 PM EDT

Eight year old Zion Williams enjoyed racing around on his scooter on Friday. Unlike other children, though, Zion's time playing outdoors was not done after school. Zion Williams was suspended from school that day - over a haircut.

Zion Williams suffers from Alopecia. The mysterious condition affects 1 in 50 Americans and, though experts are not clear on the cause of the disorder, with many believing that genetics play a major role, the symptoms of the autoimmune disorder are quite clear. People who suffer from Alopecia have hair that falls out, either in clumps or altogether.

However, Zion's mother Talia Mann had thought that they had found a solution. According to the New York Daily News, Ms. Mann had enrolled her son in a trial at Drexel University that would try to grow little Zion's hair back. The unorthodox treatment involves patches, Fox 29 in Philadelphia reports, but so far it appears to be working and Zion's hair is growing again.

However, the trial's success was not considered good news to everyone. Zion attends the Shiloh Christian Academy, and the school has a strict "long hair rule" forbidding boys from having long hair. Though Ms. Mann sent a doctor's note to the school explaining the trial and asking that Zion is exempt from the rule, the school refused to make an exception for Zion. Last Wednesday, Zion was suspended from school for violating the rule.

"I think it's heartless. It's heartless that he would actually take him out of school because of something so simple as a haircut," Talia Mann said to Fox 29.

However, it appears that the media attention on the school has caused the school to become more flexible on the matter. Principal and pastor Bishop Derrick Williams announced that Zion would be allowed to return to school tomorrow, with his hair the length that it is.

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