Readers of this blog may recall Cato’s filing an amicus brief for an appeal in the Eighth Circuit supporting two Missouri women’s challenge to state requirements that they become licensed as cosmetologists or barbers before being allowed to work as African-style hair braiders. Obtaining the mandatory license from the Missouri Board of Cosmetology & Barber Examiners entailed undergoing a minimum of 1,000 hours of mostly irrelevant training and passing an exam with both written and “practical” (term used loosely) components.
Not only is over 90 percent of the required training completely inapplicable to the practice of African-style hair braiding, but seven of the nine board members are barbers, cosmetologists, or cosmetology school owners with a direct financial incentive to limit competition.
None of that mattered to the three judges on the Eighth Circuit panel, who yesterday after a full year of foot-dragging issued a perfunctory opinion upholding the district court ruling in the board’s favor. Instead of finally providing two aspiring entrepreneurs their day in court before a neutral arbiter, this ruling continues the pattern of courts’ violating bedrock due-process principles by rubber-stamping occupational regulations under the flimsiest of rationales.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/eighth-circuit-makes-tangled-mess-hair-braiding-case
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