The Right to Wear Headscarves and Other Religious Symbols in French, Turkish, and American Schools: How Goverment Draws a Veil on Free Expression of Faith
The Right to Wear Headscarves and Other Religious Symbols in French, Turkish, and American Schools: How Goverment Draws a Veil on Free Expression of Faith
Oriana Mazza, 48 J. Cath. Legal Stud. 303 (2009)
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The crux of the hijab debate is whether wearing it is a human right and to what extent, and for what reasons, the government may ban it. Part I of this Article will discuss the backdrop of the hijab debate: why women historically have worn it and what it means to both Muslims and outsiders. Part II examines how France’s unique history led to its ban of hijab. Part III discusses the ban in secular Turkey, where an ongoing war over the issue continues with the Turkish high courts overturning recent attempts by the legislature to remove the ban in universities. This Section gives particular attention to the ECHR’s Sahin decision and where its logic faltered. Part IV shows that while the U.S. does not have a nationwide ban, this issue comes up in schools more than we might realize. This Section explains how the Supreme Court’s shift to the neutral and generally applicable test of Employment Division v. Smith in 1990, has left open the possibility of infringing on the right to wear headscarves and suggests the standard under which courts should scrutinize school policies that burden students’ freedom to wear religious symbols.