Muslim girl suspended in Oklahoma over dress code.

You asserted that the veil is directly connected to the oppression of women in Muslim countries, and therefore should not be permitted in schools. I brought out an anecdote to counter that assertion.

If they allow her to show her muslim-ness she will obviously BLOW UP THE SCHOOL!

OMG, cause now every fucking muslim is suspect.

Funny how when Christian or Jewish groups commit terrorist attacks, all christians and jews don't become suspicious.

Fucking makes me sick

Hi

plonk, I hope I understand .

What I say is : everybody can wear what he wants ok ? But I'm not ok when a very young girl (10-12 yeras old) has to wear a veil. It makes distance between her and the others girls and boys. She has to refuse to go to swimming-pool or to do any sport. If she is 18, it is her choice. I can not force everybody to respect herself. But I'm afraid when I see a very young girl who says "I don't want to go to swimming pool with boys because it is not good for us".

It's so hard to explain for me . In your country or in England, you have a lot of communautarism compared to France. In NYC for example, you have disctricts for each people. And you don't miw with he others a lot. That's reality in England, is that true in USA ?
In France we are mixed. And we think similarity in preferred to show differences.

Yesterday we have a sad story in France. An algerian girl as been attacked by two men because she wears earrings with cross. They beat her seven times with a knife on the head and says "it is charia for you". She is not dead fortunatly.

At school, little girls with veils are together and when a non-muslim boy wants to speak to them, they said "no, it is forbidden".
We're used to kiss to say hello ; they don't do.
All boys with kippa go to jewish schools and there are no kippa on secularist schools.

For Waco, I explain bad ! Of coruse I think the government was very wrong but we have to see before there was a problem with davidians.

You say : "You still haven't given me any arguments for a compelling state interest in banning it in schools."
It is very difficult for me because our mentality are very different on this point.

When a teacher speaks to a boy or a girl, he musn't know if he is jew, christian or muslim. If he sees a veil, a cross or a kippa, he will see.

At school, I think we are to show what we think, not to show what we are.

and if we authorise veils at school, other parents who don't dare their girl to wear a veil, are going to do. And they don't want to.

Speak to our history too. The french history. 10 years ago, they were no veil in the streets and no veil at school. Now there are more and more. Not because girls want but to go to sschool without problems. Lots of girls wear the veil because ifr they don't they have problems with boys.

and for me veil shows differences between good girls and bad girls.

To me, that's within the appropriate scope of a parent's power to raise their child as they see fit. While I would not choose to raise my child that way, it's not abusive, so I don't see why I or the state should have any say.

Generalizing for the whole US is a really hard thing to do, since it's such a large and diverse place. I suspect it's hard for many Europeans to understand that diversity within a single country, speaking one language, because there are lots of Americans who don't appear to get it. Our dear president seems to be one of them. While people do tend to clump by ethnicity or other forms of social identity in the large cities, they tend to get mixed back up together at work and at school, so you do get exposed to a diverse range of cultures in the major cities. Obviously, it's different in more rural areas, since they are more culturally homogenous.

You also have an official, government-sanctioned model of what it means to be French. That is a completely different situation from the US, whose culture is almost completely syncretic -- it's an amalgam of bits of all the cultural traditions that have landed on these shores. As a result, differences are better tolerated here than they are in most of Europe. And I am proud of that -- I think it's one of the great things about the US.

I got similar responses from girls when I was a teenager, with nary a headscarf in sight.

I'm underwhelmed -- that's a relatively minor cultural quirk which isn't even shared by all Europeans.

Just b/c yeshiva kids are much more likely to wear the kippa on a daily basis (selection effect, natch) doesn't impact whether or not girls from observant Muslim familes should or should not be allowed to wear the veil to school.

This is a wholly different approach to secularization and religious tolerance than in the US. The US approach has been to aim for a society in which religion is a matter of personal belief which intersects the public sphere only to the extent that the individual believer wishes it to. There are a million ways in which we fall short as a nation; however, the concept is worth continuing pursuit because it fully acknowledges the value of religion to many people.

I suspect this may work better in the US than in France because the US has been a multi-religious society for the vast majority of its history. We've never thought of ourselves as the defender of any religious faith, unlike France, so we don't have a strong history of entanglement between temporal and spiritual institutions that must be rejected.

This seems to me to be a meaning you are attaching to someone else's practice that is not implied by the practice itself.

avoiding the current debate for a second...

now, i doubt this school is forward thinking... but i will point out that a strange, yet effective tactic in getting stupid laws changed is enforcing them.

that is, say you and your school board peers hate the concept of dress code. now, the most effective way to get those laws changed would be to set up a standard dress code, and enforce it. you will ultimately end up with a ridiculous situation such as this, and hence might just get the law to change across the country.

now, as stated before, i doubt, based on posts detailing the mindset of this town, that this was the goal. but, next time you hear about someone upholding a ridiculous rule, realize, at least for a second, that this is the best way to get said rule overturned. the authoritarian may not be a nutcase... he may actually be on your side.

or not.

I think most people here forgot the real issue. Thought Control. The reason many people fear the wearing of religous symbols or saying psuedoreligious things (ie the word "god") is that people fear just the mention or sight of such things might influence someone into actions. People fear saying the pledge 'under god' not because of it's psuedoreligous conotations but because someone is afraid that their kid will be influenced into converting to christianity, despite the fact the word God is NOT christian.

The issue with the muslim girl is just a variation upon a theme.

Who gives a shit?..if she refuses to take the fucking rag off her head, then go to a private school....simple as that.

Nice display of religious bigotry. Thankfully, the school board is not permitted to behave in quite such an intolerant attitude.

Edit: I do believe I've just been trolled.

[Edited on Nov 05, 2003 by plonk]

dude... are you this irrational or are you trying to piss people off intentionally?

edit: or both?

[Edited on Nov 05, 2003 by robinbanks]

how is it irrational or bigoted?.....save me the crap please, there is a very defined line between church and state no?..bottom line... if her parents insist on her having to wear her scarf/rag/whatever on her head , then put her in a religious school where that will not be an issue. end of story.

helter where are you?...ahem.

I have to dissagree. Most of the ACLU people would defend this girls right to wear her head covering based on the second prong of the religion clause of the first amendment stating "shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibitong the exercise thereof..." Alot of people forget about the second part of this clause when they talk about religion is schools. You can do whatever you want, you just cant make me do whatever you want. And while the state may claim that this is for some sort of protection agaist gang violence, the first amendment has to be read in regards to the supremacy clause art VI § 1 clause 2 which says that all laws must be made persuant to, and all judges are bound by the laws set forth in the constitution.

Clearly you missed the clause "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" in the First Amendment. It's kind of important.

Then by that token, let no one impede or prohibit the right of her parents to excercise their rights of free speech in a different and more appropriate forum aka a private learning institution.......nuff said"

If we're arguing semantics, I'd like to know when and how the administration of a mid-western school became congress...

Actually, this sounds fairly rational to me. The public schools in my area won't allow kids to wear all types of headgear. That is apparently their prerogative. Why should this turban (or whatever it is) be exempt from these rules that all the other kids are required to obey?

Fourteenth Amendment extends 'congress' to mean 'any government agent'. 'nuff said.

the phrase "any government agent" doesn't appear in the fourteenth amendment.

I assumed you'd realize that 'equal protection of the laws' means, in practice, any government agent.

it doesn't. The phrase "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" has no bearing on who the amendment applies to whatsoever. It limits an action, it doesn't change who it is that's being limited.