After years of complaints that agents arbitrarily search black women’s hair, the Transportation Security Administration has agreed to new training courses that stress “racial neutrality.”

A traveler is checked by a TSA agent at a security checkpoint area in Chicago on Nov. 21, 2014.

Nam Y. Huh / AP

The agreement comes after both Malaika Singleton and Novella Coleman said that their hair — which they wear in a type of dreadlock style — was arbitrarily searched.

Coleman told BuzzFeed News on Friday that TSA agents singled her out for hair searches three times several years ago. In one instance, she asked why her hair was being checked and was told that agents search hair that has extensions or "abnormalities."

"Just that phrase is stigmatizing in itself," Coleman said.

Coleman — a staff lawyer with the ACLU of Northern California — filed a complaint about the searches in 2012, but the TSA did not make policy changes at the time.

Then in late 2013, Singleton told BuzzFeed News that she experienced something similar. En route to London, she was stopped in LAX and had her hair searched. Then on the way back, she was stopped again for a hair search during a layover in Minneapolis.

"The first time I was shocked," she said. "I just did not expect that. I felt violated."

Malaika Singleton

Courtesy Malaika Singleton

Singleton said she was wearing her hair in a style known as "sister locks," which creates numerous long strands that are sometimes mistaken for braids. Singleton added that she did not receive an explanation for the searches.

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