Pennsylvania High School Rescinds Ban on Muslim Scarves

FOXNews.com ^ | Wednesday, February 18, 2009 | By Diane Macedo

[metmom]

A Pennsylvania high school is permitting Muslim students to wear scarves known as kaffiyehs in school just a day after ordering two students to remove them for class.

Gateway High School officials met with parents Wednesday after seniors Mohammad Al-Abbasi, 18, and Ahmad Al-Sadr, 17, left school Tuesday after refusing to take off the checkered scarves, believed by some to be a symbol of terrorism.

[metmom]

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[Edizzl79]

Heard this story on local radio tonight, they have arrived.

[valkyry1]

As long as they dont all the hijab scarves are fine

[valkyry1]

scarves known as kaffiyehs

But not those scarves 

[allmost]

"As a result then the tensions started to escalate between the two factions,"

These are children, older yes but still children. Reporters have moved up into, or surpassed, the same damned echelon as lawyers.

[metmom]

I know that several schools in NY have no hat and no hood rules. It’s supposed to be for general safety, so that you can see the kid’s faces and be able to identify them.

So far I haven’t heard of any challenges to this rule.

I wonder how it would play out if someone tried it.

[SampleMan]

I’ve been trying to find t-shirts with the Crusader cross on it, but I haven’t so far.

[Steamburg]

Then they should remove the ban on gang insignia and armed students too.
This country is becoming a smudge pot not a melting pot.

[toothfairy86]

I work in Monroeville, the location of Gateway School District. It is a very diverse community, an eastern suburb of Pittsburgh. There are several Hindu temples, a synagogue, and an Islamic center nearby. These kids have been wearing their “scarves” for over a year before the school administrators decided not to let these kids wear them. The Gateway school district really blew it on this one. On the other hand, once one of these kids wore a t-shirt to school that pretty much said “death to Isreal”, so I’m sure their motives weren’t entirely benign.

[Digger]

DRIP DRIP DRIP DRIP DRIP DRIP. You stupido Americans!

[Ban Draoi Marbh Draoi]

Wonder what the response would be if someone were to wear a t shirt that said “death to islam?”

[dervish]

The Keffiyah is a symbol of Palestinian solidarity. Combined with the “RIP Israel” t-shirts, the intent was clear.

If the Jewish students came to school in IDF uniforms, would that be ok?

[JenB]

I grew up one district over from this school district. It had an odd mix of inner-ring suburbanites, a folk who had moved out of the more ghetto neighborhoods, and immigrants, mostly Indian tech workers but a little of everything.

The only thing that surprises me is that there weren’t white students wearing the stupid scarves in “solidarity”.