A Texas judge recently ruled it unconstitutional to force and African-hair braiding teacher, Isis Brantley, to become a registered cosmetologist or work for a local cosmetology school in order to teach students how to braid African style hair.
Assistant director for the Institute for Justice Evan Bernick wrote in the Huffington Post that the government acknowledged that the licensing process would not realistically protect public safety.
“In seeking to defend the challenged provisions, the government admitted that the provisions ‘may not be sensible or particularly well crafted’ but argued that those who drafted them ‘could have believed that they furthered legitimate interests in public health and safety,’ even if they actually did not,” wrote Bernick.
The Texas story is similar to what NPR reported in 2012 regarding Jestina Clayton from Utah.
According to NPR, someone threatened to report Clayton for operating without a cosmetology license. The court decided that not only did Clayton not present a public health concern but none of the cosmetology schools even taught African hair braiding as part of their curriculum.
Both of these stories touch on an ongoing discussion about whether professional licenses are overused in the work force?
Louisiana was the only state to require floral arrangers to be registered with the state. According to the Louisiana Horticulture Commission, the purpose of the agency is to oversee qualifications, prevent fraudulent practices, promote continuing education and ensure the quality of products.
To test this claim, the Institute of Justice had a group of licensed florists look at floral samples from regulated Louisiana as well as unregulated Texas to see if the florists could tell a difference in quality.
“Not even the licensed Louisiana florists found any difference in quality that could be attributed to licensure,” the IJ reported.
Columnist George Will recently wrote an article calling professional licensing “crony capitalism.” Will suggested that the one of the main reasons why these licenses exist is to protect the industry workers from competition.
The Boston Globe reported on a possible solution to conflicts surrounding licensing.
“Later this year, a class of around 14 will graduate from a new program in the state of Washington, where the bar is experimenting with ‘limited legal licenses’ that give people with just one year of training — provided by professors from local law schools — clearance to work in family law,” reported the Globe. “That means people going through more or less routine legal processes like divorce and child custody negotiations will be able to hire specialists for relatively little money and benefit from their expertise in court. ‘“
The Globe wrote that states that experiment with this type of licensing will be able to increase the number of skilled workers in an economy, keep prices low for customers and protect service quality.
Matthew Jelalian writes on financial issues for the MoneyWise section. He can be contacted via his email mjelalian@deseretnews.com or on twitter @jelaliam.