COLUMBIA, Tenn. -- Matching hairstyles landed twin boys in the principal's office with matching suspensions in Maury County Tuesday.

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"It started with them having a haircut," said Paul Edwards.

Edwards said he doesn't understand why his sons, Jorden and Jacen, were taken out of class at Randolph Howell Elementary for their hairstyles.

"His line that runs here to here," he said, pointing to the curved line that runs along the left side of his son's head, from the forehead inward.

To Edwards and his sons, the line is a part. To the school, it was something different.

"The part was considered a gang sign," Edwards said.

Disciplinary paperwork signed by the school's assistant principal stated Jorden and Jacen are in violation of the school dress code. As a result, they would have to cut their hair.

Edwards said he was told by the school that the boys' heads "need to be shaved before we allow them back in school or they will stay in suspension until their hair grows back."

The school dress code states students must not have symbols, numbers or letters shaved into their haircuts. That's a revision from the old dress code that stated students hair can not be unkempt, unclean or impair vision.

Edwards said he feels none of that applies to his sons. He has pictures to show the boys' haircuts have been the same, with the line, since the boys were toddlers. One of those pictures recently hung on a school wall.

"I think it was a rush to judgment," said Maury County School Board member Talvin Barner.

Barner said he thinks the school went too far and brought the matter to the attention of county school administrators.

"When I showed them the pictures that the father texted me, they all immediately agreed this was a part," he said.

The boys are back in school, but Edwards said he feels the damage is already done.

"These boys have been punished for something they did not do wrong," he said.

Maury County has a system-wide dress code, but how it is enforced is up to individual schools' discretions. Going forward, Edwards would like to see a more uniform enforcement policy. He also wants the suspensions taken off his sons' school records and the school's principals to be reprimanded.

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