Here’s an unusual case. Muslim parents are suing a public school in south London for refusing to allow their nine-year-old daughter to wear a head scarf to class. That’s not so unusual in itself. Law school casebooks are full of cases in which parents sue public schools for failing to accommodate their children’s religious practices. What makes this case unusual is that the public school in question, St. Cyprian’s in Croydon, is an Orthodox Christian school.
To Americans, faith-based public schools are unfamiliar. As Ashley Berner explains here, however, such schools are common in England. According to the official government website, roughly seven thousand “maintained,” as in publicly maintained, “faith schools” exist, the large majority of which are affiliated with the Church of England. St. Cyprian’s is affiliated with the Greek Orthodox Church—it is the only Greek Orthodox school in England, in fact. As a faith-based school, St. Cyprian’s may give priority in admission to Greek Orthodox students, though by law it must admit students of other faiths if places remain unfilled. As far as I can tell, like other public schools, St. Cyprian’s may adopt its own school uniform policy, subject to very broad guidelines.
I’m not sure how the English courts will resolve this dispute. But the whole situation is puzzling and it’s a shame things have come so far. It’s odd, in the circumstances, that the parents would insist on a Greek Orthodox school for their daughter. If it’s so important to them that she maintain Muslim practices, why put her in a school in which a different religion is pervasive? Isn’t that a bit unreasonable, and unfair to her? The school says the parents petitioned to send their daughter to St. Cyprian’s, and that the school’s rule against head scarves was explained to them before she matriculated. St. Cyprian’s has very high academic ratings; perhaps that explains why the parents are so eager to have their daughter attend. Still, it’s all rather odd.
On the other hand, the school’s position is puzzling as well. There’s nothing in Orthodoxy that forbids the wearing of head scarves; in fact, some Orthodox women wear head scarves in church. Perhaps St. Cyprian’s is concerned that a visible non-Orthodox presence would dilute the school’s identity. That’s a valid concern, in my opinion. And I can understand how school officials might think they’ve been sandbagged by the parents in this case. If the parents knew about the rule against head scarves before their daughter matriculated, why are they complaining now? But the law requires St. Cyprian’s to admit non-Orthodox students if it has places for them, and it doesn’t seem tenable to admit such students and then forbid them from wearing their religious attire. Anyway, mightn’t it be better, in the circumstances, to allow this student to wear her head scarf? What would demonstrate more effectively the essential nature of Christianity—its willingness, even joy, in serving everyone and anyone?
Mark Movsesian is Director of the Center for Law and Religion at St. John’s University.
January 10th, 2013 | 12:14 pm
Agreed on both counts — odd for Muslim parents to send their daughter to a school where her practices can’t be accommodated while valuing those practices, odd for the school to ban headscarves. Though headscarves are distinctively Muslim, they are not distinctively unChristian, and refusing to accommodate on an indifferent matter is not extending much charity.
January 10th, 2013 | 12:54 pm
Ah dunno. From my perspective in the US, these problems would seem endemic to a circumstance in which government finances a religious school. I’m astonished this type of issue hasn’t arisen before.
What are the issues?
1. May government fund religions schools?
2. If so, must a publicly-funded religious school make “reasonable accommodation” for students that profess a religiously-mandated imperative to act in a manner inconsistent with school policy (and where an accommodation would not pose an obvious obstacle to the goal of education)?
3. Where the publicly-funded school and the student claim incompatible religious imperatives, which side must make accommodation to the other?
4. May government evade these conflicts by offering separate but equal establishments? If so, who gets to determine test by which equality is measured? And who gets to apply the test?
I imagine the student/parents concluded that state-provided alternative establishments were not equal to the religious school. They sought and receive admission to the religious school, and now seek the same reasonable accommodation that they would expect from any other public institution. After all, why should their taxes go to finance institutions that discriminate against them?
And I imagine that the school regards itself as a mission-driven institution that makes itself available to people who desire to be part of that mission. The school need not accommodate the interests of dissenters, because the state provides accommodation in the form of alternative schools.
Interesting case. In the US, we might pursue a remedy via vouchers. Vouchers provide a means for laundering public money, turning it into private money, and turning unconstitutional state discrimination into perfectly constitutional private discrimination. Not sure what remedies they have across the pond.
January 10th, 2013 | 5:36 pm
I suppose it is a shame that the school didn’t just allow the scarves for Moslem students. Whatever the school’s reason was, it probably is not worth this headache.
However, I am not sympathetic to the Moslem parents. They knew the rules and agreed to them. There are good reasons for uniforms. I wore a uniform to school, and there were always people who pushed against the dress code and griped about its sillier aspects. There was nothing unCatholic about dangling earrings, strange haircuts, V-neck sweaters, pants, crew socks or footwear that was not black-and-white saddle shoes. None of those were allowed, though, because they were not part of the uniform. I do not remember anyone wanting to wear a headscarf (even though some people still wore them to mass), but they would have had it confiscated and earned demerits.
i got to appreciate the uniform as I got older and was spared the daily clothing angst of my sister who attended a public school. More importantly, when visiting classmates on weekends, I discovered that some of us were from extremely wealthy families and some were welfare recipients (at graduation, one classmate thanked the anonymous philanthropist who was paying her and her 7 siblings’ tuitions). The uniform equalized us—you absolutely could not tell anything about us based on our clothes. The minute someone dressed out of uniform, that was gone.
January 10th, 2013 | 7:16 pm
It makes you wonder if they did not sign their daughter up for school there purposefully to cause problems.
January 10th, 2013 | 10:28 pm
In Jordan, muslim parents strive to enroll their children in Catholic schools. Muslim immigrants to the US likewise prefer Catholic colleges. At least the Catholics, they are quoted as saying, can appreciate where we are coming from.
January 11th, 2013 | 1:38 am
p.s. 99% of all schools in the UK have a school uniform. It is the rule rather than the exception.
Many secular schools accomodate the hijab – as long as it is in school colours.
At some schools the rules will not permit you to wear a cross under jewellery rules. (Most allow it however – as long as it is for religious reasons and discreet)
January 11th, 2013 | 7:52 am
Agreed on both counts — odd for Muslim parents to send their daughter to a school where her practices can’t be accommodated while valuing those practices, odd for the school to ban headscarves.
Not odd at all if that happens to be one of the better schools in their area.
File this under why the ACLU is right. If taxpayers of all faiths are going to fund a certain school, then taxpayers of those faiths are going to reasonably expect some degree of accomodation. If taxpayers weren’t funding the school, it could be as Orthodox as it wants to be even requiring all its students be actual Orthodox Christians.
But most schools want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be public schools, open to all, when it comes time to cash checks but suddenly become private religious only schools after the check clears.
January 11th, 2013 | 10:11 am
Boonton — good point about it being among the better schools. I recall now that such things are common in many countries of the world — the kids are sent to what are considered the best available schools.
Not sure this bears in any way on any claim of the ACLU, since British law with respect to religious practice is entirely distinct from American. The First Amendment guarantees free exercise and non-establishment, period, and there’s no provision for vacating it depending on where the check is cut.
January 11th, 2013 | 11:57 am
Well many European countries do not have the US idea of a strict barrier between public and religious. They have freedom of religion but at the same time ‘official’ state churches leading to the line getting blurred. A taxpayer who doesn’t share the faith has literally no right to complain because the system is set up with some faiths as ‘preferred’ and all the rest not. Granted this violation of freedom may be pretty soft as in the case of the UK but in other cases it can bite pretty hard such as in Greece or Russia.
January 11th, 2013 | 2:25 pm
“A strict barrier between public and religious” might be a popular folk concept in America, but it is not a legally established one. I think you’re referring to non-establishment of religion, which is far narrower in scope that creating a barrier between everything public and everything religious.
January 11th, 2013 | 5:06 pm
A hijab is not cultural it is in fact religious. It is to cover a women’s beauty i.e her hair.
Muslims are always facing a backlash for everything they do. If a Sikh man can wear his turban to be a guard for the Queen, why can’t this school allow pupils to wear a piece of cloth to cover their hair. It is a religious symbol and the sooner everyone accepts its stay in this country, the better. No point fighting the inevitable. And yet images of the holy mother Mary show her covering her head. I wonder if she enrolled in this school they would treat her the same? I would much prefer to see young girls wearing modest clothes than the mini skirts of an excuse of school uniform they are made to wear. All these comments about her having to enrol in an Islamic school sound very ignorant to me. Isn’t it better that they are trying to integrate and co-exist with people from other backgrounds and religious beliefs, without having to give up on their own? The only way to live together is to learn from each other. The school should practice tolerance and be reasonable. It is not unreasonable to allow the child to wear a headscarf if her parents feel very strongly. Surely she is there to be educated…everything else should be secondary.
What nonsense by the governing body , hundreds and hundreds of UK primary schools allow Muslim girls to wear hijab as part of their uniform, and why not, it’s neat and tidy – and stops the poor girls from catching nits from their peers!. And surprise surprise the sky hasn’t fallen down yet. And moreover in the interests of a united society in the future I would far rather see Muslim girls being educated in mainstream schools wearing hijab rather than being sent to religious schools because the mainstream schools are inventing petty rules that exclude them and divide them from the society that they are going to be living in and…
January 12th, 2013 | 10:53 am
Boonton, your comments do not apply to the British situation – which has a very complex history regarding public schooling and faith schools.
Put succinctly, the majority of schools were affiliated with religion until early 20th Century, and state schooling did not really exist. When it was introduced to some extent in 1902 – the majority of denominational schools were accommodated for. Then true state run education (we mean something different when we say public schooling) was only really established in 1948. In both cases, the main providers of education had been churches and charitable bodies. The state sought to utilise their buildings and their workforce to establish schooling for all. Therefore accommodations were made and the legacy lives with us.
I believe the US is a totally different situation both historically and constitutionally with regard to the place of religion in schools. This is a legacy we are left with in the UK, and even attempting to unpick it would be time-consuming, costly and controversial.
What studies have shown is that faith schools tend to do well because the parents are committed and there is a clear school identity and ethos. The same is true of purely secular schools, like the one I teach in in London, where committed parents, good teaching and a clear ethos make an outstanding school.
January 12th, 2013 | 1:43 pm
Same thing, try to imagine what would happen if the US Congress announced some mainline, middle of the road Protestant denomination would be the ‘Church of the United States’ and would receive a very small, PBS sized stipand from the taxpayers.
January 13th, 2013 | 5:22 pm
Boonton, to what does that last comment apply? If to mine, what is the same thing as what? The establishment of a single state church, clearly and explicitly forbidden by the first amendment, is “the same thing as” giving money to a wide variety of religiously based schools (including many based in clearly conflicting religions) to allow them participate in the public education process? Really?
January 14th, 2013 | 6:50 am
I would say then an effort would have to be made to reasonably attempt to calculate the cost of the religious education from the total education provided and scale the voucher accordingly. This might simply be a symbolic gesture in some cases but an important one IMO. Most religious schools would come out favorably in this respect as they have made it very easy to sell their services to non-members of their religion by emphasizing their secular benefits.
January 14th, 2013 | 9:08 am
“A hijab is not cultural it is in fact religious. It is to cover a women’s beauty i.e her hair.”
Maybe this is part of the problem—different cultural values. I appreciate modesty and see it as a strength. I hope some of the Moslem girls’ modesty will rub off on the rest. But I do not think Westerners generally think of women’s hair or beauty the same way. It’s not just a lack of understanding but also a different point of view.
January 14th, 2013 | 11:59 am
I believe Orthodox Jewish women do also have the same understanding but ‘solve’ the problem by using wigs, which many may not notice in casual encounters.
To me it does sound cultural. The religious belief is to be modest, but modesty is relative to culture and context. An easy way to see this, imagine a woman wearing a bathing suit to class….quite a few heads will turn even it’s one that would be very low key on the shore.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact