Cornwell v. California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology

Teaming with Dr. JoAnne Cornwell, a “locktician” from San Diego who created the “Sisterlocks” technique of natural hairstyling (and who chairs of the Africana Studies Department at San Diego State University), the Institute for Justice in 1999 struck down California’s expansive, expensive and arbitrary cosmetology laws that had prevented hundreds of African-Americans (mostly women) from practicing a cultural art form: African hairbraiding.