Posted on 01/16/2008 2:58:37 PM PST by tobyhill
WASHINGTON — A high school track star has been disqualified from a meet because officials said the custom-made outfit she wears to conform to her Muslim faith violated competition rules.
Juashaunna Kelly, a senior at the District of Columbia's Theodore Roosevelt High School, has the fastest mile and two-mile times of any girls' runner in the city this winter. She was disqualified from Saturday's Montgomery Invitational indoor track and field meet.
Kelly was wearing the same uniform she has worn for the past three seasons while running for Theodore Roosevelt's cross-country and track teams. The custom-made, one-piece blue and orange unitard covers her head, arms, torso and legs. Over the unitard, she wears the same orange and blue T-shirt and shorts as her teammates.
The outfit allows her to compete while adhering to her Muslim faith, which forbids displaying any skin other than her face and hands.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
This seemed to be an invitational, so the director should be able to have more leeway to make a common sense call if he wanted to.
What is really bad is missing the qualifying for the meet in New York. That can lead to some real interest from college coaches.
May opinion at this point is that the director is being a jerk.
I've seen a state championship relay team be DQ'd after the race because one of the runners had a top that was faded from improper washing. It was the same uniform, but faded and another coach protested.
That was the worst example I can think of now but I've seen a lot of similar type of BS in HS track.
It comes down to whether or not the meet director has the b@lls to confront out of line coaches rather than cower to mindlessly narrow interpretation of the rules.
The purpose of clothing rules is to avoid garish uniforms or improper advertising, to avoid gaining an advantage via clothing or to avoid deception of the competing teams.
The rules committee said no. She was given options, including solid colors, but she must have been the one to refused.
Again:
The girl chose a team sport - for which she would be expected to wear a team uniform.
Nobody is demanding she run and represent the school in the regular team uniform.
If she wants to be a member of the team - she must conform to the regulation uniform - therefore guaranteeing all competitors are equal.
It’s a team sport!
(1)You obviously are not a runner, nor do you appear to be acquainted with any runners.
(2)If you'll read more carefully, it's an indoor track meet.
She’s in solid colors, and apparently there are no logos or lettering on the unitard.
If I am reading the article correctly it sounds like she was only confronted with this at the track meet when it would be too late to get her custom made uniform to meet the standard...a uniform that no official had a problem with for the 3 previous years keep in mind. From the sound of her and her Mom I bet they will have a uniform that meets the color requirements and her religious requirements at the same time for the next event. It's unfortunate that they wouldn't let her run one last time in the outfit and thus we are now reading about this in the national news.
You pulled the other thread?
It had some 30 replies. I know it was a duplicate, but I (I’m sure others also) were bouncing back and forth.
Could you maybe just lock it?
There’s the solution. If she can’t accept this offer then oh well, she loses.
If her uniform didn’t fit this standard then she’s wrong.
If it was genuinely an advantage, don’t you think all the teams would have uniforms like this? She’s been competing in it for three years, so how does it suddenly become a problem? It’s not even clear that there’s anything about her outfit that’s in violation of any written rules.
A lot of things don’t add up here; some of it may be due to poor reporting. But look at this: “The custom-made, one-piece blue and orange unitard covers her head, arms, torso and legs. Over the unitard, she wears the same orange and blue T-shirt and shorts as her teammates.” ORANGE AND BLUE is what the whole team wears.
Then: “But meet director Tom Rogers said Kelly’s uniform violated rules of the National Federation of State High School Associations, which sanctioned the event. Uniforms are required to be “a single-solid color and unadorned, except for a single school name or insignia no more than 2 1/4 inches,” he said. SINGLE SOLID COLOR, so how come the whole team isn’t in violation?
Continuing: “Rogers said he knew Kelly was wearing the uniform for religious reasons and that he offered her several options to conform to the rules while still respecting her faith, including placing a plain T-shirt over her unitard and then wearing her team uniform over it.” How does placing a “plain” T-shirt over the unitard and then the team shirt and shorts over that, make her outfit any closer to what Rogers described as the requirements? The plain T-shirt certainly wouldn’t cover the unitard (which runs from the top of her head to her ankles and out to her wrists!) and if her team shirt and shorts go OVER the plain T-shirt, then the T-shirt wouldn’t be covering any non-conforming aspects of the team shirt and shorts either. And it certainly would make her even warmer, so that aspect of your point is clearly not what this meet director was concerned about.
Girls dress a lot like that in the cold weather around here.
Likely, this girl has no choice. It'd probably earn her an honor killing if she rebelled.
I agree. My son ran x-country and track and they are strict about their uniforms all matching. It’s the rules. If you dont like the rules go play somewhere else. When my son wrestled during the winter 1 ref who did the skin/nails/hair check prior to a tourny would make my son cut his hair every year. No other ref ever had a problem but 4 years running he would grab an assistant coach and a pair of scissors and cut his hair. pissed him off to no end but if he wanted to wrestle that day that’s what it took. p.s. after the first year the coach would just act like he was cutting hair and when he checked back it was just fine. it was nothing but a power trip for a striped shirt.
Yeah, me too.
I think we should ignore them until such time as the moslem nations of the world have extended the same rights to everyone within their countries.
Then we wouldn't have to consider anything a moslem wanted ever again.
Agree with you 100 %.
See my post at #52. The solution the meet director offered didn’t address the solid color issue at all.
Gator, I just saw her racing about an hour ago in the same venue as the article, wearing the same garish rag. This time it wasn’t a tri-state meet, just a local meet but now we had two TV trucks with the booms up in the air, ready to catch the latest aggrieved Muslim poster child.
Gotta tell you, that uniform is really distracting. It is a multi-color form fitting spandex full-body raceskin. She looks like a clown. All the other competitors race with school colors on their baggy uniforms. They can get disqualified for taping their loose jerseys and along comes this special spandex creature saying her religion makes her do it.
I’m glad the officials at the tri-state meet gave her a chance to make things right and then showed her the door when she wanted special treatment.
Spare me.
BTW, she is a senior.
Where ever did you get that idea? The government is expressly forbidden from infringing upon the free exercise of religion and despite the ACLU’s confusion over the First Amendment. They know government shall not establish a religion. School do indeed have to accomodate a student’s religion. This is why attempts to ban student bible readings, afterschool Christian clubs, the wearing of religious jewelery and other expressions of a student’s faith are sucessfully challenged in court.
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