Several days ago, The Spectator carried a short article by Stephen Pollard, responding to some comments by Mehdi Hasan. The essential cause of all the comments concerned a school enforcing the wearing of hijabs. Pollard states the context for the discussion like this: ‘On Tuesday, Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, raised the issue of Barnet Hill Academy, a newly state-funded Islamic faith school in north London, which requires female pupils to wear hijabs from Year three onwards.’
Two clear sides to a discussion then formed. Pollard – who evidently shares Laura Trott’s position – argued thusly (I emphasise the key argument in bold):
Not all the school’s pupils are Muslim. But only after its enforcement of mandatory hijabs sparked a backlash did the school add a line to its uniform policy statement online to say that the hijab is ‘not a requirement for any non-Muslim students attending the school’. It’s quite something to think that even non-Muslims might have had to wear a hijab. But the statement also, of course, makes it clear that it is indeed compulsory for pupils deemed to be Muslim. It should be a relatively uncontroversial statement that no female child in Britain should be forced to cover their hair in school. Religious observance should always be a matter of personal choice.
In other words, it is not for schools to enforce religious practice nor (seemingly) what pupils must wear. Personal choice is key.
On the other side of the matter, and the specific comments with which Pollard took issue, was Mehdi Hasan. Specifically, Pollard states, ‘It did not take long for Hasan to wade in after Trott promised that a Conservative government would stop seven-year-old girls being forced to wear a hijab at school. Hasan posted this on X: ‘Will the Tories also be requiring state-funded Jewish schools in the UK not to make the kippah mandatory…Or are the Tories only picking on Islam and Muslims, as usual?’’
The less charitable inference (the one Pollard draws and spells out in the article) is that Hasan insists Tories are essentially bigoted towards Muslims. A very charitable reading is that Hasan points out that this represents a contradiction between how we treat expressions of faith. My personal read is that Hasan is simultaneously doing both things. Nevertheless, Hasan appears to be arguing schools have every right to enforce whatever religious practices they want, even on non-practising pupils.
It seems to me that both have a point and yet both also miss the point. If I disagree with anyone most, it is with Pollard. I think he sails close to a legitimate point, but then manages to miss it. Hasan I essentially agree with so far as schools enforcing what they will is concerned, but I think he misses out something significant that tempers the bald point he makes.
The key point both miss (Pollard comes close before failing to land on it) is that neither the school, state nor child has the right to determine religious practice. That right ought to belong to parents. Now, to be clear, I state that even the child has no right to determine religious practice – and note I am specifically stating practice here. Nobody can make a child or anyone else believe what they do not believe. Nobody can make a child a genuine adherent of Christianity, Islam, Judaism or anything else. However, parents have the right to bring their children up in the practices of whatever faith or none they like. Children, of course, may grow up to reject these things. But I think it fair to say, whilst they are at school, up to the age of 16, unable to consent to pretty much anything else of their own volition, it is for parents to determine.
Pollard misses the point altogether by insisting that children get to self-determine what faith practices they adhere to. The truth is, that is both utterly unworkable and simply untrue. Parents choose to bring up their children in whatever faith or tradition they believe to be best. Children are under the supervision and guardianship of their parents until such time as they are old enough to make those decisions themselves. Some parents may give leeway earlier than others, but certainly by the time they are 18, nobody is can make anybody say or do anything.
Hasan is essentially right that schools can and do determine what pupils will wear and do in school. It is, in fact, entirely their right to do so in school being as they are in loco parentis. Everybody agrees that schools are free to set their own uniform policy. Faith schools are also free to run their school with a faith-based ethos in keeping with the faith they represent – indeed, they are set up on the very premise of doing so. This means, if a Jewish school chooses to expect every male to wear a kippah, they can do so as part of their uniform policy in keeping with their faith. Likewise, if a Muslim faith school chooses to expect its pupils to wear a head covering, that is consistent with their faith-ethos and strikes me as a perfectly legitimate uniform policy. Neither is fundamentally different to Harrow choosing to make everybody wear boater hats or any other state school saying hats are not permitted.
Pollard’s argument is problematic for a few reasons. Not least, how does he get around our ongoing legal position of assemblies of ‘a mostly Christian nature’? How do we address “forcing” non-Christian pupils to engage with Christian prayers and songs? We may want to suggest that these ought not to be enforced (I would back that line), but never has the argument that the child is not a faith-subscriber been a grounds to permit non-engagement. We simply don’t permit children to check out of any school expectation on the basis of personal choice, faith-related or otherwise.
However, we must come back to the principle of who gets to ultimately choose what is appropriate for a child. It certainly isn’t the school. That right belongs to the parents. So, how do we balance a parent’s rights against a faith school that is seeking to run according to a faith-based ethos?
Typically, our answer has been pretty straightforward. Namely, faith schools can insist on whatever practices they will in keeping with their faith-based ethos. Anybody sending their child to an Anglican, Jewish or Muslim school (as examples) is like to expect those schools to have baked into them Anglican, Jewish and Muslims practices. Nevertheless, parents are not forced to send their children to any of these schools. Those who object to Anglican, Muslim or Jewish practices being foisted on their children are free not to send their children to such schools. The school has the right to dictate its own policies and expectations in keeping with their faith-ethos and parents have the right to choose another school more in keeping with their own particular beliefs.
This is why I find it bizarre that Pollard would be so unhappy at the thought a child might be forced to cover their hair. It is not bizarre if you have chosen to send them to a faith school at which you know this is a practice. Faith schools can bake in the practices they want to do, and if you do not agree with it or object to doing it because you believe it is partaking in a religious observance that you do not want to associate with, you can simply send your child to another school altogether. Mehdi Hasan is right to suggest that schools may function in line with their faith and bake that into their daily schedules and uniform policies and such like. What he fails to mention is that parents are free not to send their children to that school.
What is most strange to me – given we do not argue this on almost any other matter – is that anyone would make a case on the basis of personal pupil choice. No school, faith or otherwise, functions this way. Rather, the ultimate choice belongs to parents. Parents do not get to pick and choose which aspects of school life they will or won’t accept. They don’t get to pick and choose which policies they will or won’t tolerate. But they do get to decide that this school, with all its practices and policies, is not for us and this other school, with other practices, is.
A school may choose to have some leeway in its policies permitting parental choice over some matters; this may even be part and parcel of what commends a school to the parents. But a school doesn’t have to offer such choice. It can, if it wants, enforce head covering and hijabs if it will. Parents, in turn, can see these policies and say ‘no thank you’ and find a different school for their children instead.
It is possible for everybody to be served, if only we will let them.