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Teacher wearing a headscarf

CAN A MUSLIM WOMAN WORK AS A PUBLIC-SCHOOL TEACHER WHILST WEARING A HEADSCARF?

Summarized: A Muslim woman may work in public-office as a teacher while wearing a headscarf. A headscarf ban at school is only permissible in individual cases wherein the school peace or the state’s code of neutrality is concretely threatened.

According to a decision made by the Federal Constitutional Court in 2015, a public-school teacher may not be forbidden the wearing of a headscarf when she does it on religious grounds.1 A ban on the headscarf is only permissible in certain cases, wherein a concrete threat to the school peace or to the neutrality of the state exists. In the same decision, the court pointed out that giving certain privilege to Christian occidental educational and cultural values is inadmissible.2  

Even though the legal situation has been made clear by this decision, there have been multiple instances since then of such infringements upon the rights of headscarf-wearing teachers. Berlin especially has gone so far as to insist that a headscarf ban is legal under Berlin’s neutrality law. This administrative practice is regularly a subject of judicial proceedings. In November 2018, for example, the Berlin Regional Labour Court awarded compensation to a Muslim applicant whose application had been rejected on account of her wearing a headscarf.3 The court was of the opinion that Berlin’s neutrality law had to be interpreted in conformity with the constitution and that meant that the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court from 2015 would have to particularly be taken into account. 


Federal Constitutional Court, case from 27.01.2015, 1 BVR 471/10, margin 116.

2 See above, margins 123, 138. 

3 Berlin Court rules in favor of hijab-wearing teacher, in: Deutsche Welle, 02.09.2017, dw.com/en/berlin-court-rules-in-favor-of-hijab-wearing-teacher/a-37477936 (last retrieved: 18.08.2023)

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