The action of the free massless spin-$\frac{5}{2}$ tensor-spinor field ${\psi }_{\mu \nu }$ is decomposed into its canonical form. It is shown to depend on a single gauge-invariant helicity $\pm \frac{5}{2}$ spinor, the transverse-traceless and $\gamma$-transverse part of the spatial components ${\psi }_{\mathrm{ij}}$, which obeys the ordinary Dirac equation. The remaining nine components are explicitly removed using invariance of the action under three local gauge functions, to each of which is associated a Lagrange multiplier, constraint variable, and gauge component. The analysis of the higher-half-integer-spin cases is then shown to follow in a uniform way, in terms of suitably defined field variables.

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