Muslim girl suspended for head scarf

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Muslim girl suspended for head scarf

Saturday, October 11, 2003 Posted: 5:17 AM EDT (0917 GMT)

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) -- An 11-year-old Oklahoma girl has been suspended from a public school because officials said her Muslim head scarf violates dress code policies.
Board officials met Friday to discuss the fate of suspended sixth-grader Nashala "Tallah" Hern, who was asked to leave school in the eastern Oklahoma town of Muskogee on October 1 because she refused to remove her head scarf, called a "hijab."
School officials instituted a dress code in 1997 prohibiting the wearing of hats and other head coverings indoors. Officials said they implemented the code to stem gang-related activity. Hern declined to remove her hijab, saying it would violate the way she observes her religion.
Officials at the school, the Ben Franklin Science Academy, previously summoned Hern to the office on September 11 to inform her she was no longer allowed to wear the scarf. She had worn it since the school year started a few weeks earlier.
A school attorney said federal education rules adopted in 1998 do not allow for exceptions for religious beliefs.
"As I see it right now, I don't think we can make a special accommodation for religious wear," said school attorney D.D. Hayes. "You treat religious items the same as you would as any other item, no better, no worse. Our dress code prohibits headgear, period."
"You treat religious items the same as you would as any other item, no better, no worse."

-- Ben Franklin Science Academy attorney D.D. Hayes
He added that, under the dress code, a Jewish child would not be allowed to wear a yarmulke, the skullcap traditionally worn by orthodox Jews, to school.
Rabiah Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the Washington D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the Muslim girl is being singled out because of her religious beliefs.
The girl's father met with school officials Friday in a closed-door hearing to appeal the decision. The school board is expected to have a decision next Wednesday on whether the girl can return to school wearing her head scarf, officials said.
There is a similar situation and controversy in Germany mat the present time. A teacher of the Islamic faith has been suspended for refusing to remove her hajib in the classroom.
Should the wearing of the hajib be allowed?

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The girl should be allowed to wear her scarf. I think that this incident is a flagrant example of bureacracies getting caught up in administrative verbiage, and allowing reason to fly out the window.

I wonder how much of this problem is caused by the fact that there is a lot of anti-Muslim feeling in the US? What would have happened if a religious Jewish male student wore his skullcap?

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Phoenix32890

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What would have happened if a religious Jewish male student wore his skullcap?

Based upon the article the same thing. It would not be allowed.

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This is a big issue in France,as well.

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Ridiculous!

Jehovah's Witnesses are allowed to pound on my door and disrupt my day and a well-behaved girl is not allowed to follow her religious beliefs?

Preposterous.

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Surely this nonsense violates freedom of religion?

I can see the point of Muslim women not being permitted to wear headgear obscuring their faces in identification photographs, of course, but this seems just ridiculous to me.

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Ironically, prohibition of the scarf is seen as promoting religious freedom. Confused

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Yes - I see that, though it makes my eyes cross a little! However, when the promotion of freedom leads to such results, it sems we might need less law, and more common sense!

Here, although we have strongly secular schools, too - and christmas and easter themed class activities are now frowned on, headscarves cause no problems.

I see the gang thing problem - and, in a highly litigous society, I can see ridiculous pitfalls looming for applying common sense, but I think there should be room for such in law.

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I support the school. I thought it was preposterous that I could not be a well behaved "cap" wearer. On some days (like when my friends shaved circles on my head) I had damn good reason to want to wear a hat but was not permitted.

Enforcing a dress code is not easy. I see no reason for religious exceptions. If religious exceptions why not "ethnic" exceptions?

"Seriously, wearing wallet chains is a part of my culture man!"

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Can you imagine that all these school administrators with PhD's still don't get it?

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So, Craven - I may, and do, think the wearing of head-scarves is ridiculous - but these people really believe in this stuff. Is this girl, and others like her, not to have an education in a normal social setting because of her beliefs?

I have already indicated I understand the legal pitfalls - but surely, in a common sense world, we could argue that wallet chains and such (or anything actually dangerous, or that breaks normal laws) however important they may be to a fella's image, are not actually a religious requirement? Yes, I can see the Supreme court having to rule on that one, sigh, but at least meanwhile this girl could be getting an education.

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My opinion is unresolved on this question. Headscarves can lead to chadors, and so on, no?
And I do believe in same rules for all in school dress codes. On work, probably same rules for all.
A little hard for me to say, sitting here at work in jeans with my dog next to me - I have a lot of work freedom and almost always have.

But the fact that it is really not a large item and is so very important to those who believe in it... makes me soften a little. Though I have little sentences I say to myself when I see the veils.
(bad hair day? bad/osso). I used to cover my hair, sort of, myself, as a young Catholic girl, but that was in church. And, I can see the points about strictures emphasizing a sense of isolation in a group.

I also believe in communities integrating while not erasing cultural differences. (And what do I mean by that, eh? thinking about it.)

I'll come down for the moment on side of supporting the school.

Edit to say I didn't mean yamulkes and headscarves should be banned at work; meant that whatever rules occur in whatever work or school situation should be for everybodyat that workplace...

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I always had the funny idea that educators were supposed to educate and teach tolerance.

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There is a problem in the US about Muslim women wearing headscarves and what have you at WORK?????!!!!!!!!!! Or those little hats Jewish men wear??

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I have seen Muslim women working in banks with scarves.

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Also in stores.

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I dunno. I went to a high school and grammar school with uniforms, very specific uniforms, but those were private parochial schools. I went to a state university where anything but total nudity was ok, and sometimes even that...

But if no one can wear hats at a public school, then that should be across the board, huh? Or is it that no one can wear a religiously affiliated headcovering? Hmmm. Can we wear a2k hats?
It does seem to be stupid.

Ok, back to unresolved.

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So, what exactly are they trying to teach their children about Muslim girl's restrictions on wearing scarves?

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dlowan wrote:

So, Craven - I may, and do, think the wearing of head-scarves is ridiculous - but these people really believe in this stuff. Is this girl, and others like her, not to have an education in a normal social setting because of her beliefs?

Nope. The first step in her education can be that she won't always get her way and that her beliefs should be compatible with the life she wants to lead.

When I couldn't wear a hat when my friends shaved my head I didn't go to school.

Lots of people dislike the dress code. When my school threatened to require uniforms most students said they wouldn;t go to school.

Their loss.

US courts have ruled countless times that freedom of speech does not apply to school. The schools can't function if they have to bow to each ridiculous belief.

IMO religious dress is a form of expression. When it becomes an extention of the body that the individual can't live without it is less reasonable.

What if I were to say that my religion is such that I should always be armed and try to force that on the school? That one is obviously not permissible and IMO making exceptions to the dress code for beliefs is unwise. They can wear what they want outside of school. If not wearing a bra is against the dress code (because it distracts) then why shouldn't religious wear be against the dress code?

The schools struggle with dress codes. It is an issue that is recently related to keeping students alive.

In the schools I attended I could not even wear anything with a sport's team logo because the crips and the bloods were using certain sports teams as their uniforms.

Enforcing a dress code is already a pain, making frivolous exceptions makes it harder.

I understand that the one who holds the belief does not consider it frivolous. But there are lots of wacky people who do not consider their beliefs frivolous.

I know people whose religious beliefs preclude the wearing of a bra. That would be against the dress code.

I know people whose religious beliefs preclude vaccinations. Their kids can't go to school when there is an epidemic.

I'd rather make the religious beliefs a capital offense than have society bow to each of them.

The middle ground is that they can hold their beliefs and make an effort to work with society.

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Muslim girl suspended for head scarf

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