Should your child's teacher wear a turban, a hijab, a kippah or other "religious dress'? The state of Oregon doesn't think so. The Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act, now awaiting the governor's signature, requires all employers to let workers wear religious items with one exception: "No teacher in any public school shall wear any religious dress while engaged in the performance of duties as a teacher."
The proposed law has set up a classic religious liberty battle between the First Amendment's Establishment clause, which tells government not to favor (or disfavor) one religion over another, and the Free Exercise clause, which tells government to leave the religious alone. The new law also reflects the increasing difficulty of accommodating a widening variety of religious faiths in a pluralistic society.
Organizations representing Sikhs and Muslims claim the new law would unconstitutionally limits their religious freedom. They are asking Gov. Ted Kulongoski to veto the bill. "In effect," argues the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, "observant Sikh Americans would still be barred from working as teachers in the public schools of Oregon because of their religiously-mandated dastaars (turbans), and observant Jews and Muslims would also be subjected to the ignominy of having to choose between religious freedom and a teaching career in the State of Oregon."
But Oregon's Department of Education argues that public schools are obligated to maintain religious neutrality: "The underlying policy reflects the unique position that teachers occupy," spokesman Jake Weigler told the Oregonian. "In this case, the concern that a public school teacher would be imparting religious values to their students outweighs that teacher's right to free expression."
Not quite, argues the Council on American-Islamic Relations: "Those who wear religiously-mandated attire are not proselytizing; they are practicing their faith, a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Concerns about religious neutrality in schools can be adequately addressed through professional codes of conduct," spokesman Ibrahim Hooper says in a statement.
Oregon already bans teachers from wearing "religious dress." The new law allows other workers to wear religious items while maintaining the ban for teachers only. The Oregon ban was tested in the 1980s when a Sikh teacher was suspended for wearing a white turban and white clothes to class.
"In its 1986 decision Cooper v. Eugene School District, the Oregon Supreme Court . . . upheld the state law, (writing) that "the aim of maintaining the religious neutrality of the public schools furthers a constitutional obligation beyond an ordinary policy preference of the legislature," the First Amendment Center reports. Courts also have upheld a similar law in Pennsylvania.
Turbans, kippahs, headscarves and other items of clothing obviously qualify as "religious dress." But what about crosses, Stars of David, the Hindu tilaka (forehead marks), or other religious symbols that are less apparent? What about "religious dress" that isn't at all apparent, such as undergarments worn by Latter-day Saints or long hair or bears worn by some for religious reasons? Who gets to decide?
On the other hand, most schools have basic dress codes for teachers and students. If schools can ban tank tops or gang symbols, why not turbans or religious symbols?
COMMENT by "RSingh"
Oregon's teacher garb law was enacted nearly a century ago by sympathizers of the Ku Klux Klan for the purpose of suppressing Catholics.
According to the Oregon Blue Book, a state publication:
"The Ku Klux Klan enjoyed a warm reception from many Oregon communities in the 1920s as Catholics and minorities suffered both blatant and subtle bigotry. The Klan, FOPS, and Scottish Rite Masons sponsored a bill, passed in 1922 in the general election, to compel all children to attend public schools. The overtly anti-Catholic measure threatened to close all parochial schools and military academies. The state Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional in 1924 and the U.S. Supreme Court concurred in 1925. The Ku Klux Klan found a strange champion in the Oregon legislature. Kaspar K. Kubli, speaker of the House of Representatives, happened to possess winning initials and became a rallying point for efforts to drive through the Alien Property Act of 1923. The law prohibited Japanese from purchasing or leasing land in Oregon. The legislature also passed a law forbidding wearing of sectarian clothing, namely priestly vestments or nuns' habits, in classrooms."
Arguments about religious neutrality miss the point. Nearly every state in the country permits teachers to wear religious clothing in private adherence to faith because they recognize that there are more narrowly tailored ways of preventing religious indoctrination than categorically violating the civil rights of teachers.
Fundamentally, Oregon's teacher garb law is overbroad and antiquated effluvia from a racist past. It defies logic to understand why Oregon lawmakers have failed to bury the bones of the Ku Klux Klan, and it offends our morality to think that some might have tried to piece them back together. I think that's the point of contention.