When 16-year-old Lane Kiesling showed up for class at school in Hico, Texas with bangs exceeding the school dress code limits for the third straight week, the administration decided to take his hair into their own hands.
The teenager said he is too embarrassed to return to school after he was pulled from class and given a haircut reminiscent of the 1994 movie “Dumb and Dumber.” (RELATED: Walls Across America: Jim Carrey Edition)
Lane’s mother, Amy Martin, said that her son had been informed that his hair was too long for the school code three weeks prior, but financial hardships had made it impossible for her to take him to get his bangs trimmed.
Lane was taken from his seventh-period class and brought to a teacher, who trimmed his bangs. He was then returned to his classroom, where his classmates mocked him for the remainder of the day. (RELATED: Virginia Elementary School Apologizes Over Runaway Slave Game)
The Hico Independent School District principal allegedly claimed that it was Lane’s fault for looking down during the haircut, but ultimately apologized and offered to take the student for a real haircut to get it fixed.
Still, the embarrassment stuck with him.
“I know it’s just hair. It grows back. But it’s not like she just gave him a haircut. She hurt his self-esteem. His self-image. That’s the problem,” Martin told NBC Fort Worth.
“It looked like if I were to take the kitchen scissors and just pull it out and bluntly over and over cut, because you know it was just very choppy like Jim Carrey on ‘Dumb and Dumber’ but rounder and a little bit shorter,” she said.
By giving Lane a haircut, the school seemingly violated their own code, which states: “If the principal determines that a student’s grooming or clothing violates the school’s dress code, the student will be given an opportunity to correct the problem at school. If not corrected, the student may be assigned to in-school suspension for the remainder of the day.”
The school claimed in a statement that this policy, like all others, is in place to “educate and support the well-being of every student in Hico ISD.”