The Law Against Discrimination Based on Hairstyles prohibits discrimination in public services, employment, education, and housing based on protective hairstyles or hair textures often associated with specific racial and national origin identities including, but not limited to, rolls or tight curls, locs, glued braids, twists, cornrows, Bantu knots and afros.
Puerto Rico’s law extends protections to individuals with certain hair textures or hairstyles in both the public and private sectors and is effective July 24, 2024.
Employers are prohibited from suspending, refusing to employ, dismissing, or otherwise taking adverse employment action against an individual due to their protective hairstyles and hair textures.
The new law amends the 1959 Puerto Rico Anti-Discrimination Act to include discrimination based on protective hairstyles and hair textures as a protected category and the 2020 Law to Prohibit and Prevent Workplace Harassment in Puerto Rico to classify comments or mockery about an employee’s physical appearance, dress, or protective hairstyles and hair textures made in public as workplace harassment.