A Veil of Ignorance

Aishah Azmi taught at a junior school in England and was told to take off her veil in class because children had difficulty understanding her English lessons, according to BBC News. She refused and was subsequently suspended, and is now facing sacking. The 23-year old teacher said the children had never complained about her wearing the veil and she would remove her religious garments, but not in front of male colleagues. The issue is whether the government has the right to get involved with and dictate what an employee wears when it is for religious purposes, and whether the religious garbs a person chooses to wear distract or hinder them from performing their duties. The school Azmi teaches holds 529 pupils aging from seven to 11 and admits students from different ethnic backgrounds where English is not their first language. From a democratic perspective it is wrong to discriminate - much less fire - someone based on his or her religious dress. This woman was hired with the understanding these garments were what she would wear daily for religious purposes. She taught under those conditions after being hired and only now is her religious garb a problem. If the issue is that the children are young and might have a hard time communicating with the teacher, than she shouldn't have been hired to teach such young children. The administrators should move her up to a higher-grade level where it is easier for children to communicate with her. Some leaders of that particular community feel veil-wearing could separate people of different ethnic backgrounds and other communities. However, that is not the issue currently at stake, which is whether or not Azmi should be fired. Furthermore, there is no reason for the teacher to be separated from the students she teaches as she interacts with them on a personal level on a daily basis. It is wrong for the government to tell someone they must remove their garments sacred to them ex post facto - if there is an issue at all, it should have been addressed in the hiring process, not now. In situations like this compromise is always an option, and that option usually lies in tolerance and understanding.

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out