THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, September 3, 1995              TAG: 9509030067
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES 
DATELINE: RICHMOND                           LENGTH: Short :   48 lines

WENDY'S STAFF WINS THE RIGHT TO WEAR THEIR HAIR IN BRAIDS

Three students have won the right to wear braids to work at Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers after a manager briefly banned the hairstyle as ``prone to bugs and lice.''

On their side, the students had the corporate logo, featuring a red-haired girl with braids, and Virginia health regulations, which recommend braids as a hair restraint for food handlers.

The students, all black women, have shoulder-length hair braided into more than 100 stiff strands in a style popular among black youths. The three called the ban racist, kept their hairdos and said they were willing to be dismissed.

The women said the manager of the store, on a neon-choked turnpike in Chesterfield County seven miles southwest of the state Capitol, told them last month that their hair was unsanitary, although they all wore the required caps or visors.

``He said we were prone to bugs and lice because we don't wash our hair,'' said one of the young women, Nikitia Grant, 17, a freshman biology student at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. ``It was so messed up it was sad.''

The hairdos, which take about nine hours, cost about $85, including two or three washings and a monthly scalp cleaning. After two months, the hair must be rebraided.

Dr. Andrea J. Nicolls, a curator of African art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, said the comments by the manager, who is white, showed ``ignorance of African culture.'' She said the style was meant to keep hair clean and out of the way in a hot, dusty climate.

Another of the students, Aleeta Dunn, 17, a high school senior and National Honor Society member, said: ``There's a white girl who works here with hair all the way down her back. But the manager said, `I know she washes it.' ''

The president of the franchise, which operates seven Wendy's restaurants in the Richmond area, reversed the manager's policy after an account of the dispute appeared Thursday afternoon on the front page of The Richmond Free Press, a black-oriented weekly.

``We realized we had goofed up,'' said the president, Edward P. Anderson. by CNB