Posted on 07/01/2009 6:31:23 PM PDT by Steelfish
CoE school bans girl from wearing crucifix - but allows Sikh pupils to wear bangles
A school told a child to remove a Christian cross she was wearing even though it lets Sikh children wear bangles as part of their religion.
Lauren Grimshaw-Brown was told to take off a necklace with a cross on it because of health and safety fears.
But the eight-year-old's furious mother has accused the school of double standards because they allow children following other faiths to wear jewellery on religious grounds.
The mother-of-two says Lauren and brother Callan, five, have always worn crosses at St Peter's CE School in Chorley, Lancashire.
'We're a Christian family and my children wear the necklaces underneath their tops,' she said.
'On Thursday Lauren was told by a teacher to take it off because apparently they're not allowed to wear jewellery.
'I could understand it if it was a fashion accessory or a High School Musical necklace, but it's part of our faith.'
Mrs Grimshaw-Brown complained directly to the headteacher, Helen Wright, who referred the matter to the school's chairman of governors, Father Atherton. He upheld the ban.
Mrs Grimshaw-Brown added: 'I received a letter in my child's reading folder. It said that if she had been a Sikh child she would be allowed to wear bangles because it's part of their religion.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I read it...all the way to the end.
The Sikh bangles are bracelets.
The rules said “no bracelets”, too.
I don’t think the school should have a problem with either of these kids wearing their religious jewelry. The girls can always be told to put their necklaces in their clothing when they are at recess, etc. That was a sad excuse. I don’t know much about the Church of England or their beliefs, but it seemed strange, particularly from a school named “St. Peters”.
There was a case probably just a few hundred (or less) miles away from there almost exactly a year ago where the Sikh family took the school to court for not allowing their daughter to wear the bangles. They won. I think this school may have been trying to avoid that with the “brooches are OK” thing. I don’t know. It just reeked of more political correctness.
She can wear the exact same item as a brooch. That’s a pin. Take the crucifix off the chain, put a pin on the back of it (which can be done for about 50 cents with epoxy and a pin from the jewelry parts section of a crafts store, or pay a jeweler a few bucks to do it), and put it right on the front of her shirt — she could even put it in the exact same spot where the crucifix sits on her shirt when it’s hanging from a chain. I’ve done this myself with pendants I preferred to wear as a brooch. Since the crucifix presumably already has a little hole at the top, she could also get a little stud earring of the same metal, and fasten it to her shirt like a lapel pin, so no permanent alteration would need to be made, and it could still be worn elsewehre as a pendant.
The school bans necklaces of all kinds, not just religious. The Sikhs’ bangles were granted an exception because wearing them is a specific requirement of the religion, just as many workplaces ban hats, but make an exception for Jews who must wear a yarmulke. I know of no branch of Christianity which teaches that followers must wear a crucifix on a chain around their necks, and this family is not claiming to follow any religion which has such a requirement.
If parents at the school want to challenge to overall ban on necklaces, they’re free to do so. But I expect an insurance company is at the bottom of the rule.
These rules are usually driven by requirements of a school’s liability insurer. For example, at several schools I attended, backless shoes were among the prohibited items (danger of tripping and falling, especially down stairs). At one of these schools (a private school), the student government attempted to get the rule changed as clogs and “Scholl’s” were the current fashion rage, but quickly relented when they were shown the insurance company’s written requirement.
Sure, an insurer could probably be found that would write a policy without requiring that this rule be in place, but it would very likely be more expensive. And if the experience of the school, or of it staffers who’ve worked at other schools, is that necklaces, hooped earrings, and bracelets really do end up causing injuries, it’s well within reason to prohibit them. I’m not aware of any religion that actually requires necklaces or hooped earrings, I think the Sikhs are probably unique in requiring wrist bangles. A blanket ban, with exceptions only for the very rare cases of specific religious requirements, is reasonable. Otherwise teachers and staff end up having to police a large array of such jewelry, and kids will of course try to push the envelope and wear larger necklaces that are primarily or exclusively fashion statements and claim they’re “religious” (picture giant pentacles on 12 year olds who became Wiccans last week).
Maybe the thinking is that when the children are playing, the chain on which the crucifix hangs might catch on something and injure or, in the most extreme case, strangle the child.
I think BOTH of you are correct. Probably a necklace for young kids can be dangerous (as opposed to a closed bangle).
Perhaps the school was fair. Maybe it is the way they conveyed their message seems unfair.
However, now that my emotions have calmed down, maybe this is the one time where the News media has hyped this up too much.
It is just that we are like whipped dogs now. There are so many genuine attacks against Christianity that we are in a defensive posture and sometimes we may over-react to something that may not be an issue after all.
In any case, I feel calmer now...and maybe (just maybe) fully see both sides of the story
I understand about the liability insurance and all. Just wait til a kid gets stuck with one of those brooches with a rusty tip and has to get a tetanus shot. I guess those will be banned, too.
I’ve never been one to go for “zero tolerance” of any kind and this sounds like like that, with the exception of the Sikhs. Nothing against Sikhs, here, at all.
Still - I can’t be sure how it is in England, but I know here, classes were over 30 kids when I was in elementary school and my teachers did a very good job policing us during class, during lunch, on the playground and other activities without these blanket bans.
Not arguing with you, just airing my thoughts. I guess my first statement “They just wanna ban Christians” might have been a little harsh.
Given the almost daily goings on in Great Britain whereby everyone seems to bend over backwards to accommodate the minority population, often at the expense of the Christian community, your initial response is totally understandable.
With energetic help from the child's parents. I guess they've got their pulse on the mood of the news media, and realized they could get their family in the newspapers this way. But given what the underlying facts are, I'm inclined to put these parents in the same category as the all-too-numerous US parents who fight (sometimes even in court) sensible school dress codes, claiming that their little darling goth or grunge or skank or Crips offspring's First Amendment rights to free expression are being violated by being required to wear a white polo shirt and khaki pants or modest skirt to school.
You are correct about that. A school should have the right to set sensible policy.
As I said earlier, there has been so much Christian bashing in general that one tends to be very defensive...
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