Muslim students in P.E.

DO MUSLIM STUDENTS HAVE TO PARTICIPATE IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION CLASS?

Summarized: As with the previous question, participation in all lessons, including physical education, is one of the obligations of a student. Students must always take part in physical education, even if it is not separated by gender. An exemption from lessons can only be considered in rare exceptional cases.

Admission to a public school establishes a relationship under public law, from which rights and obligations arise for the students.¹ Participation in Physical Education at school is one of these obligations.² An exemption from this obligation to participate in P.E. doesn’t have much chance of success in light of the case law of the Federal Constitutional Court³ regarding exemptions from swimming classes.⁴   

Similar considerations as in the case of swimming lessons come into play here. Mixed sports lessons and participation in them can, in principle, cause Muslim students religious distress. For example, there are those who consider it a religious, binding commandment to cover their bodies as much as possible in relation to the opposite sex and to avoid any contact with them. The religious freedom of Muslim students from Article 4 of the Basic Law can therefore come into conflict with the state's educational mandate from Article 7 of the same. The latter also has constitutional status and is thus of equal importance to freedom of religion.⁵ The state's educational mandate confers powers on the state to plan, organize, manage and shape the content and didactics of the school system, its training courses and the teaching provided there. This includes the power to determine the content of instruction and to decide on modalities such as whether or not classes should be mixed. To be able to do justice to both positions, the possibility of an exemption was created, which can only be made use of in the rarest of cases.⁶  

In light of the case law of the Federal Administrative Court, according to which a Muslim student can wear a full-body costume (the ‘burkini’), as a compromise during swimming lessons (see: here),⁷ it can be assumed that the same applies to P.E. lessons by wearing modest sportswear (similar to the burkini). 

Other reasons that may justifiably prevent participation in class, such as illness, remain untouched from any of the other reasons discussed above. For example, the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia ruled that a Muslim pupil did not have to participate in a school trip due to illness because her fear of not being able to fulfil her religious obligations during the school trip would have placed her in a comparable situation to a partially mentally disabled person.⁸

^{2 Again see Section 69 (4) 1 of the Hesse School Act.}

^{3 Federal Constitutional Court, case from 11.09.2013, 6 25.12, margin 21.} 

^{4 Federal Constitutional Court, case from 25.08.1993, 6 C 8/91.}

^{5 Federal Constitutional Court, case from 11.09.2013, 6 25.12, margin 11.} 

^{6 See above.}

^{7 See above, margin 21.}

^{8 Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia, decision from 17.01.2002, 19 B 99/02, margin 7.}