School officials should revise head coverings ban
Wearing a Muslim headscarf to school should not merit a school suspension for a sixth grader at the Ben Franklin Science Academy in Muskogee, Okla.
Nashala Tallah Hearn was allowed to wear a hijab at the start of the year to school and was permitted to pray in a classroom. Officials later suspended Hearn on Oct. 1 after telling her around Sept. 11 that she would no longer be allowed to wear the scarf. The ruling stems from a 1997 departmental rule prohibiting the wearing of any hats or head coverings indoors. The original intent of the rule, school officials said, was to prevent gang-related activity. Hearn continued to wear the scarf, leading to the suspension.
Hearn's father, Eyvine, has threatened legal action if his daughter is not re-admitted to the school and the suspensions removed from her record. Many national civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, have come to the aid of Hearn. Other organizations, including the Virginia-based Rutherford Institute, have promised legal action if the case is not quickly resolved. School officials said they should reach their decision by today.
The academy must revise this rule. The point of religious freedom is so anyone can support his or her beliefs in a peaceful fashion. So long as Hearn is not disrupting school activity, she should be allowed to wear the headscarf. Officials say they cannot allow exceptions to the rule, citing federal education laws. But, schools in the same eastern Oklahoma region have allowed Muslim and Jewish students, among others, to petition for the right to don religious head wear in classrooms.
The academy should adopt the rules of some of its neighbors and allow exceptions to its rule. While trying to curb gang activity is noble, a universal rule like this is only going to invite more controversy. With a flexible rule in place, students would be allowed to follow the obligations of their religion without infringing on the rights of others, and the school would still have the right to prevent gang-related clothing from being worn in its school.
Gamefowl breeders need to be investigated
The Internal Revenue Service needs to further investigate the activities of the Ohio-based United Gamefowl Breeders Association to see if the group should retain its tax-free status.
Animal-rights groups are urging the federal government to revoke United Gamefowl's tax-exempt status. They say that roosters raised on United Gamefowl members' farms are used specifically for cockfighting, a practice in which two gamecocks fight in a cage with knives attached to their feet. During an average tournament, almost half of the birds are killed, with many of the others receiving ghastly wounds and broken wings.
Roughly 15,000 group members raise gamecocks in 28 states, even though cockfighting is legal only in New Mexico and Louisiana, with a voter-approved ban in Oklahoma pending. A federal law passed in May outlawed the interstate shipping of birds for fighting.
The IRS audited United Gamefowl last year and found no infractions. An agricultural organization, as defined by the IRS, is a group that cultivates land, harvests crops or raises livestock. The group says the birds they breed are not used only for cockfighting, pointing to the use of the birds for show, their sale as organic poultry and the use of their feathers for costume jewelry, hats and fly fishing.
Despite the illegality of cockfighting in Ohio, the sport still goes on in the state. In 1991, 249 spectators were fined $180 each for staging a cockfight near the headquarters of the UGBA. Even now, a cockfighting pit exists down the road from the headquarters of the UGBA, which is run out of board member Ray Johnson's house in Vinton County.
The IRS needs to take a closer look at the UGBA. If members breed the roosters for recreational and agricultural reasons, then the group should keep its tax-exempt status. However, if investigators find that the animals are fighting in Ohio or even being sold to places where cockfighting is legal, then its status should be revoked. If the primary role of breeding is for a sport that is illegal in 48 states, and the UGBA contributes to an illegal trafficking of animals, then the UGBA must lose its status.
17 Archives
