Action Upholds American Citizens’ Right to Religious Freedom Washington, DC – The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced yesterday that it will seek to intervene in a pending lawsuit against the Muskogee Oklahoma Public School District to protect the right of a sixth-grade Muslim girl to wear a hijab (headscarf) to school. The Oklahoma school district had violated the student’s constitutional rights by denying her the right to wear her hijab to school. According to the DOJ complaint, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, the student was twice suspended from the Benjamin Franklin Science Academy for refusing to take off her hijab, after being told that it violated the school’s dress code. The established dress code prohibits students from wearing hats, caps, bandanas, or jacket hoods inside school buildings. The girl and her parents filed suit in October 2003. The Justice Department, in addition to its complaint, filed a motion to intervene in the private School.
