Washington: Sikhs in the US have slammed a state law that would bar teachers from the community in public schools from wearing "religious dress" including turbans, a move that may spark a racial row.
In effect, the bill passed by the Oregon legislature and now on the governor's desk "prohibit teachers from wearing religiously-mandated attire, including turbans and other distinctive clothes by the Sikh community, in public schools.
According to the bill, education officials and schools would have the power to "prohibit a teacher from wearing religious dress while engaged in the performance of duties as a teacher," the Oregaonlive online reported.
Actually the draft law passed by the Oregon legislature broadens religious freedom in the workplace, but has prompted protests by faith leaders because it exempts schools from the same rights.
The bill, titled the 'Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act', grants workers wide religious leeway as long as the activity, clothing or other practices don't cause an undue hardship on the employer.
But the school exemption has highlighted "a glaring hole in Oregon's efforts to expand religious freedoms".
The new law "fails in its essence if it doesn't honestly and comprehensively provide religious freedom for all Oregonians," said Rajdeep Singh Jolly, law director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund in Washington, DC.
"It smacks of irony," Jolly said. "It takes two steps forward and 10 steps back," he was quoted as saying in the report.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) joined the Sikh community in protesting the Oregon bill to "prohibit teachers from wearing religiously mandated attire such as an Islamic head scarf or hijab."
CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper wondered if this Act would be enforced to ban Christian or Jewish teachers from wearing a cross or a star.
Sikhs tend to stand out in such cases because the religion requires members to wear turbans, said Hari Nam Singh Khalsa, a Portland attorney who said a judge once told him to remove his "hat" or leave the courtroom.
"Its hard for me to imagine that just because somebody is wearing something that is required by their religion that this is in any way suggestive to students of an endorsement of the religion," Khalsa underlined.
Jolly, the Sikh legal fund representative, has written to Governor Ted Kulongoski urging a veto of the bill.
According to the report, a spokeswoman for Kulongoski said the governor expects to sign the bill because vetoing it would not change Oregon's law prohibiting teachers from wearing religious garb.
Oregon has had a law on the books for decades that states, "No teacher in any public school shall wear any religious dress while engaged in the performance of duties as a teacher." Pennsylvania has a similar law.
Oregon's law was tested in the 1980s, when a Sikh teacher was suspended from her job as a Eugene special-education teacher for wearing a white turban and white
clothes to class. The case went to the Oregon Supreme Court, which upheld the suspension. The US Supreme Court declined to hear the case, the report said.
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