French school ejects Muslim girl for wearing long skirt

In 2004, France enacted a law that forbids K-12 students from wearing anything to school that overtly shows their religious affiliation, including visible Christian crosses, Jewish skullcaps, or Muslim headscarves. But schools have struggled over where to draw the line, or taken the law to its illogical conclusion — like the Léo Lagrange school in Charleville-Mézières, in northeastern France.

That high school is in the news because twice in the past two weeks it has sent home a 15-year-old Muslim student, identified as Sarah K., for wearing a plain, long skirt, which the principal deemed "an ostentatious sign" of her Muslim faith. Xeni Jardin summed up the outrage on social media with her headline at BoingBoing: "France to 15 year old girl: Wear a shorter skirt or you can't get an education." AJ+ tweeted this video:

Sarah K. wears a headscarf normally, but takes it off before entering her school, to conform to the French enforcement of laïcité, or secularism. The principal said in his note to Sarah's parents that they need to "rectify her clothes if you want her to continue her schooling," but the regional education director, Patrick Dutot, now says the school wasn't threatening to expel her, The New York Times reports.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

And Dutot stood up for the decision to send Sarah home. "The question isn't how long the skirt is," he said. "They come with an outfit that shows an affiliation that we respect. But once at school, you have to return to a republican and secular space — but they only remove the veil."