Idaho regulators require lengthy, expensive, useless training for braiders
Idaho beauty schools teach many techniques, but none of them are useful for braiders like Tedy Okech. As an African-style hair braider, she uses different skills with different tools.
Like many other braiders, Tedy learned in her youth by practicing on family and friends. Now she uses her skills in Boise, where she settled after immigrating from Uganda in 2005.
Sonia Ekemon, a widow who lives with her three children in Meridian, is also self-taught. She learned to braid at a refugee camp in Benin after fleeing political unrest in her native Togo. Adjo “Charlotte” Amoussou, a single mother who lives in Meridian, also learned braiding at a Benin refugee camp.
Clients would be happy to pay all three women for their services, but state regulators stand in the way. Rather than letting braiders make their own decisions about formal education, the Idaho Barber and Cosmetology Services Licensing Board requires them to have a cosmetology license. The process involves 3,200 hours as a cosmetology apprentice or 1,600 hours as a cosmetology student.
Tuition and fees often top $20,000 — not counting lost wages for time spent in the classroom. Even for students who willingly pay, the costs are high. Idaho braiders face additional aggravation for two main reasons.
First, the forced instruction is irrelevant. Most beauty schools barely teach braiding, if at all, and the state practical exam focuses entirely on other topics. Someone hoping to learn cornrowing, locking and twisting might as well enroll in culinary school.
Second, the courses are incompatible with African-style braiding. Cosmetologists alter hair using chemicals and heat. When a client comes with textured or coily hair, cosmetologists try to straighten, soften or relax it. African-style braiders provide natural hair care instead without chemicals or heat — using techniques closely associated with their cultural identity.
For them, the mandatory education is worse than useless. It is antithetical to their craft, which has been passed down for thousands of years. Yet braiders must pay for cosmetology instruction anyway or risk criminal prosecution and civil fines of up to $1,000 per violation.
Rather than accept this unjust status quo, Tedy, Sonia and Charlotte fought back on March 8 with a lawsuit against the state. The Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that supports entrepreneurship, represents them.
The litigation would not be necessary if the same braiders lived almost anywhere else. Many states allow braiders to earn income without any type of license or registration. Other states require only minimal training focused on public health and safety — similar to food handling courses for restaurant workers.
Only five states still demand a full cosmetology license to work as a braider. Besides Idaho, the laggards include Hawaii, Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming. Among these states, only Montana imposes a heavier burden on braiders — 2,000 hours of instruction — and only Montana has a lower African American population by percentage.
Most African-style braiders are Black women from working-class households with little political clout, so the lack of representation is significant. The beauty industry, in contrast, has powerful connections. Favorable laws essentially give cosmetology school operators a captive audience, which tilts the playing field in their favor.
Nearly all other colleges, universities and vocational schools must compete for students on merit. Aspiring musicians, artists, chefs, auto mechanics, journalists and business managers can walk away from educational programs that fail to meet expectations. Idaho braiders are trapped.
The onerous licensing regime must end. Beauty schools might be a great career choice for some. But Idaho braiders do not want what they are selling.