School Superintendent Apologizes After Hijab Controversy

A Texas school district superintendent apologized after a Muslim student tweeted that her class had been told that a permission slip was required to wear a hijab to school. A brief and furious controversy erupted after the student tweeted the following on Saturday.

The incident, which took place at George Bush High School in the Houston area, drew the attention of a variety of news organizations and even the ACLU.

"As Muslims, we should not have to identify ourselves with a note, or show you that wearing Hijab is part of our faith," a resultant online petition reads. "If maintaining a dress code policy requires you to put such restrictions on people of one religion, we suggest you remove said dress code policy from your rules and shift focus to the things that matter."

The school superintendent, Charles Dupre, tweeted his apology for what he called "misinformation."

Dupre appears to have responded more or less the second he learned of the controversy, which would essentially amount to a Muslim registry. As one Twitter user pointed out, such a requirement would seemingly be a fairly straightforward violation of the First Ammendment.

The controversy comes at a time of unprecedented hostility to a single religion by an American president. Several countries in Europe have outright banned wearing burqas. Europe, like America, is currently in the throes of a nationalist spasm exemplified there by Brexit and the strong support for far-right candidate Marine le Pen in France. Recent FBI data show a surge in hate crimes against Muslims that is seemingly connected to the anti-Mulim sentiment peddled by the administration. There have been a lot of rumblings about a possible reinstatement of NSEERS, which was a Bush-era Muslim registry. Though nothing has happened yet, the possibility of a reinstatement of the travel ban from seven Muslim-majority countries is also a troubling sign.