More Dress Code Crap
6th grade Muslim girl suspended from school for wearing the traditional head scarf (hijab) because it violates the school's dress code. So in the last week, we've had political speech (confederate flag) that violated a dress code and now a little girls religion violates a dress code. From the looks of it, the school is doomed to lose this case if the girl and her parents want to push the issue.
Eugene Volokh: This is all a very interesting analysis, but one thing is entirely missing from the article: Oklahoma law requires the government to grant exemptions from generally applicable rules to religious objectors -- even if that means running the (probably speculative) risk of "open[ing] the floodgates" -- unless there's a very strong reason for it not to. The Oklahoma legislature enacted this principle in 2000 as the Oklahoma Religious Freedom Act, and it seems to squarely apply here.
Eugene Volokh: This is all a very interesting analysis, but one thing is entirely missing from the article: Oklahoma law requires the government to grant exemptions from generally applicable rules to religious objectors -- even if that means running the (probably speculative) risk of "open[ing] the floodgates" -- unless there's a very strong reason for it not to. The Oklahoma legislature enacted this principle in 2000 as the Oklahoma Religious Freedom Act, and it seems to squarely apply here.
# | October 13, 2003