Chastity ring' girl loses case in UK

Furrowed Brow · Post by **Furrowed Brow** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 9:35 am

A 16-year-old girl was not discriminated against after she was banned from wearing a "purity ring" in school, the High Court has ruled. BBC

Question: should chastity rings be banned from schools?

Post by **otseng** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 9:46 am

This is totally ridiculous. A girl is not permitted to wear a ring?! Just because it symbolizes a commitment to chastity? And the punishment for wearing it is expulsion from school? This is definitely over the top.

Furrowed Brow · Post by **Furrowed Brow** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 12:08 pm

otseng wrote:This is totally ridiculous. A girl is not permitted to wear a ring?! Just because it symbolizes a commitment to chastity? And the punishment for wearing it is expulsion from school? This is definitely over the top.

I thought so too.

I also wondered if there was a movement to say remember those exploited by the slave trade, or register ones commitment to fighting global warming by wearing a ring, if these too would have been banned?

However this case comes on the back end of another case about the right to wear traditional Muslim clothes in school. School wins Muslim dress appeal So I think there is an attempt to be consistent. Mind you this is about "the right to", if a school decided the wearing of a ring or Muslim dress was not against school rules, then there would not be a problem. Would there?

QED · Post by **QED** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 12:54 pm

I think it should be pointed out that the school had a dress-code that prohibited the wearing of any jewelry. This is not uncommon and tends to be a blanket prohibition on everything including rings to avoid arguments over definitions. I personally don't have an issue with this as it is up to schools and their governing bodies to decide on the appearance of students during school hours.

Dress-codes are part of life, and I don't think it undermines anyone's rights at an early age to get used to the idea. Later employment may well call for a disciplined appearance whether for the projection of a particular kind of public image or for health & safety reasons.

Where exceptions are requested on religious grounds they defeat these objectives and such are the arbitrary nature of religions and their customs that almost any whim would seem to have grounds for appeals that are not open to people outside a particular faith.

Another similar case was the wearing of a cross on a necklace by a British Airway's flight attendant. She appealed against BA's rules which imposed a ban on the wearing of religious iconography. This was a more direct issue as BA obviously wanted to project a secular image to it's mix of clients. I think employers and educators should have the final say as they are ultimately responsible for the public image of their operations.

Alamanach · Post by **Alamanach** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 4:21 pm

QED wrote:I think it should be pointed out that the school had a dress-code that prohibited the wearing of any jewelry.

I noticed that too, though as otseng says, expulsion is a bit much. It is good to have rules in place, and to follow them, but there is a very grave danger in following rules blindly; human judgment, common sense, must always trump rules. Rules exist to serve people, not the other way around.

Further examples of this type of nonsense:
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/jun/1 ... ir_limits/

MagusYanam · Post by **MagusYanam** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 6:54 pm

Agreed. Common sense should be followed in this particular case. But from the sound of it, the girl was not expelled, and she was in violation of the dress-code. I can understand why a school would not allow children to wear silver jewelry to school (for the same reason a lot of American schools don't allow leather jackets); to me, the school's case here is more understandable than being punished for bringing a plastic butter knife to school (as per Alamanach's example).

QED · Post by **QED** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 4:59 am

Alamanach wrote:
QED wrote:I think it should be pointed out that the school had a dress-code that prohibited the wearing of any jewelry.
I noticed that too, though as otseng says, expulsion is a bit much.

Lydia Playfoot hadn't been expelled. At 16 years-old she has completed her GCSE's and left the school already. I suspect this the court action taken by her family came as the result of sticking to principles.

Chimp · Post by **Chimp** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:00 am

I think the school acted appropriately. Wearing something because it symbolized
"something" does not create the same special case wearing a cross might.

It stated as much in the article. I went to a school in the UK with a dress code and
we were trying to bend/flex the dress code constantly. The girls father is a pastor
which has more to do with the suit than her convictions.

graphicsguy · Post by **graphicsguy** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 11:34 am

Christians seem to get really upset when people try to bend the rules of their institutions. Why are some of them trying to bend the rules in other institutions?

There was a "no jewelry" policy. The plaintiff (yes, most likely her father was the outraged one) said she was being discriminated against because the ring was a symbol of her faith.

A non-Christian could just as easily where a chastity ring for the exact same reasons...it has nothing to do with faith at all.

So, the Christian family purposely violated the rule and then got in a huff and took the school to court when they got punished for it.

It just proves that regardless of race, religion, political yearnings, etc. that people are self-centered idiots.

Talisman · Post by **Talisman** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 11:45 am

Sounds about right - if you know the rules and persist in breaking them by wearing jewelry - for whatever reason, then what more can you expect ? It is nothing to do with faith (although I am sure some Christian factions would delight in trying to tell us otherwise) but simply the school asserting the need to keep to certain rules.

June