Seaside High School Apologizes for Hijab Removal Demand

by CAIR (reposted)

Mon, Jun 25, 2007 6:19AM

SAN FRANCISCO – A Muslim teenager who was ordered by a school monitor to take off a headscarf she wore for religious reasons returned to classes after school officials apologized to the family.

Issra Omer, 13, told her parents she was too embarrassed to show up for summer school classes at Seaside High School in Monterey County on Wednesday, the day after a monitor demanded she remove her hijab, the Muslim scarf covering the head and neck, to conform to the district's no-hat policy.

Issra, whose family is originally from Sudan, explained that her scarf is worn for religious reasons, but the school employee still yelled at her, said her father, Yousif Omer. The teenager, who will be starting 9th grade in the fall, felt humiliated by being singled out in front of her peers, and started crying, he said.

The school's principal, Syd Renwick, explained the employee didn't intend any harm.

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§the more

by clicker

Tue, Jun 26, 2007 11:01AM

“It was a religious expression that wasn't recognized as such,” Renwick said. “There was not malicious intent.”

Renwick sent a letter of apology to the family and offered to apologize in person.

But the family and a national Muslim civil liberties organization would like the school to issue a public apology.

“We don't want the students to walk away thinking it's OK to humiliate someone who is different, particularly in an educational institution,” said Abiya Ahmed, with the San Francisco chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

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§CAIR's double standard

by Atheist Horde

Sat, Jul 7, 2007 3:22AM

I'm disappointed to see that CAIR gets directly involved in an incident where a teenager is asked to remove her headscarf, yet they are glaringly silent when an imam in Pennsylvania calls for the suppression of free speech and publicly declares that persons who defame Islam, or who simply leave Islam, should be put to death.

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/rss/print_503977.html

Perhaps I have a skewed moral sense, but one of those incidents seems "unfortunate and regrettable" while the other seems downright scary.

As an organization that claims to be promoting American-Islamic relations, if they are going to speak out and point their finger at some random school employee who told a young woman she had to take off her scarf, then they absolutely ought to be speaking out -- quite loudly -- about an imam calling for the suppression of speech and endorsing religiously-based murders.

But what about the girl who was told that she couldn't wear her headscarf at school? The question to ask should be whether she was specifically targeted, or if instead the school has some sort of dress code that applies equally to all students.

If it IS a dress code, then it should be applied equally to all students -- or it should be abolished. But please, let's not go running about waving our hands in the air trying to make up special exceptions to the rule for people who cling to irrational fairy tales.

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"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Richard Dawkins, "The Root of All Evil?" (BBC 2006)

For more information: http://richarddawkins.net/

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