Why would a “jilbab” pose a “health and safety risk”?
A tripping hazard, I suppose.
Uh, it doesn’t? This is bigotry pure and simple? That’s my take.
Bigotry ?
Hmmm, the health & safety risk seems a bit thin, but the ruling also looked at wether she was being denied the right to practice her religion, and found that she has suitable alternatives, and there was no reason therefore to go outside the schools uniform requirements as these already accommadated her needs.
In some environments, long flowing garments probably would not be suitable, in chemistry there is a chance of catching a bunsen burner, for example.
I also note that on the BBC website, it does not make mention of Health &Safety risks, that she was provided with reasonable alternatives, and the school acted within its remit on its dress code.The judgement als goes on to state that the school had “taken immense pains to devise a uniform policy which respected Muslim beliefs”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4832072.stm
This was an appeal ruling on an earlier case,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3808073.stm
You’ll also note that this particular school has an attendance which is 75% moslem, and yet this is the only person with a problem, seems to me this is just someone with some pony to ride.
She is supposed to be thinking of taking it to the European Court of Human rights, but our judiciary would almost certainly have considered this case in the light of the EU human rights convention, I would be very surprised for this to go to such a level and be overturned.
Another vote for a trip hazard. In my county, we weren’t allowed to pajamas to school for that reason. The logic (I use the term loosely) was that it would be a safety hazard if there was a fire in the school. It may cause people to trip while trying to get out of the building.
I always wondered why we had “Pajama Day” during Spirit Weed if they were dangerous. I asked my principal about it while he was roaming the cafeteria one morning before classes and he didn’t really have an answer.
-Mosquito
What is this “Spirit Weed” of which you speak? Is it anything like “Firewater”? 
I knew I should have read over that preview one more time. Just pretend that says “Spirit Week”. While my graduating class was quite proud of having exactly 420 people, we didn’t have any spirit weed.
Coolest. High school. Ever.
From the article…
Oh, bullshit. A shalwar kameez fulfills the strictest requirements of modesty, in any interpretation of shari’ah. She just wants to prove she’s teh most hardc0re m0d3st!!1
As an analogy, this is like an Orthodox Jewish student being allowed to wear a yarmulke, and then complaining because he’s not allowed to wear a three-foot-high shtreimel.
Looking around at various reports, it appears that the health & safety aspect of the case was only one small part of the argument, which has been picked up by shoddy reporters as a wet dream of Islamic-conflict / stupid-jobsworth fusion.
Not quite. I saw her interviewed on TV this morning. She explained that the shalwar kameez is Pakistani dress, whereas she is Arab. Her beef is that the concession the school has made to Islam is not appropriate to her ethnicity. I think she has something of a point.
I also agree with this. She’s very intelligent and articulate, but I’ll bet she regrets this in years to come.
I also think she hasn’t examined why her religion/culture prescribes this particular dress for women. When questioned on this and if it’s oppressive, she didn’t even seem to have considered it. She also said it was “Islam” rather than “my interpretation of Islam” that said she should wear the jilbab.
Fun fact: apparently one of her lawyers is Cherie Blair (Tony Blair’s wife).
Not the only time she’s been in such a position, taking on the establishment in some form or other, having been involved in several court cases in the past where she opposed Government decisions.
But it’s not. If she wants to wear a jilbab rather than a shalwar kameez, religion has nothing to do with it – both are equally acceptable under shari’ah. She just doesn’t want to wear Pakistani clothing (teh horror!!!).
Not according to her interpretation. Don’t ask me where her interpretation comes from, but that’s her argument.
Yes, but there comes a point where individual interpretation must give way to common sense. If I were a Jewish student, and argued that a yarmulke or small, unobtrusive kippah was forbidden for a grown man to wear, but I must wear a shtreimel, I wouldn’t expect a public school to give much weight to my argument. There might be cultural reasons why I would prefer a shtreimel, but religiously a small kippah would be fine, and a shtreimel would definitely be disruptive in a school environment.
If she were able to make a convincing argument from Islamic law that a shalwar kameez that fully covered the body of a woman, without being tight or revealing in any way, were forbidden, I’d say she has a point. But I really don’t think she can make that case.
It’s total BS.
A jilbab doesn’t differ differ from any other long somewhat unfashionable dress. I’m sure thousands of frumpy teenagers all over the country wear pretty much indistiguishable clothing. Here are some examples.
http://www.shukr.co.uk/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/Inset_wO803.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/omanidesigns/Jilbab.gif
http://www.islamicsuperstore.net/images/women8.jpg
http://www.shukrfrance.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/wO1001-thumb.jpg
http://inayacollection.co.uk/mediac/400_0/media/eid~special-small.JPG
And a jilbab is different enough from a salwar kameez that it isn’t unexpected that someone would have a strong preference. That would be like a school full of kids from an American background bannings jeans and then wondering why we are so upset because we can still wear palazzo pants.
If England was to undergo some bizarre Gunne Sax revival, somehow I doubt they’d be bannings kids from wearing them.
I read the judgment this afternoon, (here, for anyone else) and what immediately struck me was that the words “health and safety” only appear once, in relation to headscarves as a tangential point, and had nothing to do with the outcome of the case.
While it was a unanimous decision in the end, the judges actually disagreed over whether her freedom of religion under Art.9 had been infringed. 3 (Lords Bingham, Hoffmann & Scott) said it hadn’t, and that essentially, she could have gone to another school if she didn’t like this one’s uniform. They went on to say that even if the school had infringed her freedom of religion, the school were protected by Art.9.2 - “Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society … for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.
The remaining 2 (Baroness Hale & Lord Nicholls) didn’t go as far as to say they thought her freedom of religion had been infringed, but they were “not so sure” and “a little uneasy” about the conclusion of the others that it had not. Neither really pressed the point though, because they agreed that under Art.9.2 the school was in the right.
The reason the school was in the right?
Yeah, her entire argument was based on Art.9 and Art.2 of Protocol 1 of the Convention. Accordingly, almost all of the precedent the Lords referred to was European Court decisions. She’s going to get no-where with this one.
If someone would rather wear jeans than palazzo pants, then they’re just a horrible person. There’s really no other way around it.
She’s 17, and has only just reached ‘sexual maturity’ (onset of menstruation, I presume)?
I’d say she has some problems with her physical development that are more important to deal with.