Backers of the bills said straightening hair to fit in at school or work or to have a better chance at getting a job has been part of the African-American experience for years.

“I don’t know any black woman that has not experienced getting relaxer and not having her hair burned, or the scabs on your scalp and having to put creams on your scalp to heal the scabs that you may get from a chemical burn,” said Michele Watley, founder of Shirley’s Kitchen Cabinet, a Kansas City group that advocates for black women.

Watley said anti-bias laws like the one proposed in Kansas still would allow employers to impose safety and health requirements, such as requiring shorter hair to avoid getting it caught in machinery.

Bridget Dunmore, a retired Internal Revenue Service worker from Raymore, Missouri, said in the 37 years she worked, she always straightened her hair for job interviews rather than wearing it in braids, as she prefers. She was in a Kansas City, Kansas, hair salon on Tuesday, and reflected on how she saw straightening her hair as a “means to an end” when she was younger but now sees feeling compelled to do it as discrimination.