"We Hope You Will Wear Your Hijab to School"

A hijab-clad student at Seaside High School in Seaside, California, was told by a campus supervisor in June 2007 that she had either to remove the head covering or provide a doctor's note. Angela Chan, a staff attorney for the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, took up the case of Issra Omer, 13, arguing that "If you allow an exception to a no-headwear policy for medical reasons, you must allow for religious headwear." Chan persuaded the trustees of Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, which voted 6-0 to change the dress code and permit students to wear religious items if they have sincerely held beliefs.

	Seaside High School.

After the vote, trustee Alan Haffa read an apology to Omer, calling the June confrontation an "unfortunate incident" and emphasizing that the district believes in diversity. "We hope you will wear your hijab to school," he added.

Comment: In the combat with radical Islam, I counsel focusing on the essentials, not symptoms of Muslim piety. That is, I ignore the presence or height of minarets, do not concern myself whether imams are familiar with the tax code, and worry what is going under the hijab rather than the piece of cloth itself. But accepting hijabs differs from enthusiastically welcoming them, as Haffa did. A self-demarcating item of clothing of this sort should be tolerated, not encouraged. (November 20, 2007)

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