A potential pilot program to allow beards in the Air Force and Space Force may be on its way to a hearing in front of Congress.
Lawmakers want the Secretary of the Air Force to brief them on the program, including how beards would affect discipline, morale and unity in the ranks and what effect beards would have on using air-tight equipment like gas masks. Lawmakers put language requiring the update in a joint explanatory statement from the Senate and House Armed Services Committees which finalized policies in the National Defense Authorization Act of fiscal year 2025.
The briefing from the secretary is a compromise between House and Senate lawmakers after the House initially wanted the Air Force to immediately implement a pilot program for beards. The original House provision would have established a beard-growing pilot program for the Air and Space forces but the language agreed upon by the House and Senate committee members instead asks for a briefing to Congress. The policy was included in the package announced Dec. 7, which still has to pass the House and Senate, and reconciles differing policy points in the $883.7 billion defense act.
The Air Force previously argued that airmen need to shave, even if they had religious waivers not to, in direct combat zones. In a 2016 recommendation by the service’s judge advocate general which argued that a Muslim airmen serving at a duty station in proximity to fighting against Islamic State militants and designated as an “imminent danger area” should still shave. The opinion referred to reports about ISIS using mustard gas in Syria and Iraq and noted that the service member’sduty station issued M-50 gas masks to protect against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats.
“The certification of this base as an imminent danger area, the use of chemical agents in its vicinity, and the fact that the effectiveness of the M-50 gas mask is compromised by facial hair, demonstrates that adherence to grooming standards furthers the Air Force’s compelling interest in safety,” the opinion states. “Requiring [the airman] to remain within grooming standards, is the least restrictive means of furthering the Air Force’s interest.”
Beards for inclusivity and medical need
The Congressional policy language also calls for the Air Force to look at whether growing beards “improves inclusivity” for service members with beards for religious purposes or those who have pseudofolliculitis barbae which occurs when curved hairs grow back into the skin, cause inflammation or severe razor burn – a condition that majorly impacts African American men or people with curly hair. A Uniformed Services University study from 2021 found an association between shaving waivers and longer times to promotion which mostly impacted African American service members. The authors found that these waivers “may lead to a racially discriminatory effect of the male grooming standards of the USAF.”
The policy also states that the Air Force review should identify negative bias towards members with beards and come up with strategies to mitigate those perceptions.
Debate over beards across the military has been alive and well for the last few years with branches updating regulations to allow for religious accommodations and service members serving in arctic conditions to grow beards to limit cold weather injuries.
What qualifies for religious beard exemptions have also evolved from Sikhs, Muslims, and even Norse pagans earning the right to grow facial hair. In July 2021 an Army Reserve sergeant received a religious exemption from hair standards for his Christian faith as an observer of the Nazarite vow from the Old Testament in the Bible which explains that “no razor may be used on their head.”
The latest on Task & Purpose
- A push to cut veterans disability benefits is gaining traction, experts warn
- A judge ordered the VA to build thousands of new veterans housing units in Los Angeles. An appeals court halted it
- Sailors on USS Carney recall tense night of combat in fierce Red Sea fight
- To build a runway for the new stealth bomber, the Air Force is moving 17 B-1s to a new base
- VFW bashes The Economist for taking ‘turkey-sized dump’ on disabled vets