The Republic Unsettled by Mayanthi L. Fernando

Author:Mayanthi L. Fernando [Fernando, Mayanthi L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780822376286
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2014-09-18T18:30:00+00:00

Secular Law and Religious Liberty

As a result of the 1989 Conseil d'Etat ruling that headscarves did not in themselves present a problem in the secular public school, administrators were not legally allowed to institute general bans on religious head coverings as part of a school's rules of conduct (règlements intérieures). At the Lycée Jean Nouvel in La Courneuve, teachers and administrators routinely complained about the 1989 decision because they could not include the veil in the rules that otherwise forbade head coverings (couvre-chefs) like caps and hats. “They get away with it because it's religious,” grumbled Anne, an English teacher. When I asked her if she saw a difference between the headscarf worn by her student Naveeda and the do-rags she made her male students remove, she replied, “I suppose they are different. I mean, the headscarf is religious, isn't it? It means more to her.” Nonetheless, Anne wanted all head coverings banned.

During my first week at the school in 2002, some teachers had invited a representative from the local board of education to speak to them about how to deal with the problem of the headscarf. The representative acknowledged that girls were legally allowed to wear the headscarf as a form of religious freedom. He did, however, offer some tips about how teachers could get around this legal technicality by linking the headscarf to safety issues. For instance, a girl in chemistry class could be told that if she wears her hijab, she cannot take part in any experiments, adversely affecting her grade. As Anne told me, the school “has to play these students at their own game.” Though some teachers remained unfazed by the headscarf, others felt the students' recourse to the letter of the law contravened the spirit of laïcité. They therefore sought to find ways to counter the headscarf while remaining within legal limits.

The 2004 law made their maneuverings obsolete, closing what many saw as a loophole in schools' rules of conduct. At a June end-of-year meeting of Jean Nouvel's administrative council, made up of teachers, administrators, and parental representatives, the principal, Monsieur Thomas, discussed changes to the rules of conduct. Henceforth, a section on laïcité would include a ban on conspicuous religious signs, in addition to the ban on head coverings (located in a different section of the rules). One of the teachers inquired about the Sikh turban, and the principal replied that Sikh students would have to wear a net over their hair knot rather than a turban. Besides, he observed, the turban is not religious but cultural. Regardless, it would be banned, either as a head covering or as a conspicuous religious sign, since religiosity no longer made a difference in adjudicating the rules of conduct.

A parental representative then asked how expulsions of veiled schoolgirls would proceed, and the principal responded that according to the law, there would be a short period of dialogue before any expulsion. The representative observed bitterly: “This dialogue is not really a dialogue. The law was made to expel.

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