Law.com - 3rd Circuit Rejects Muslim Cop's Bid to Wear Religious Scarf

[Paul Finkelman]

is it because the perception of religious bias by a police officer would impact how the population feels; imagine she busts a non-religious Moslem woman without headgear?  Does this lead to a perception of unfairness; or she busts an Orthodox Jew in his headgear?  Seems to me any religious symbols on police officers undermines their authority and community relations.

----
Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, NY 12208

518-445-3386 (p)
518-445-3363 (f)

pfink at albanylaw.edu

www.paulfinkelman.com

--- On Wed, 4/8/09, David Cruz <dcruz at law.usc.edu> wrote:


From: David Cruz <dcruz at law.usc.edu>
Subject: RE: Law.com - 3rd Circuit Rejects Muslim Cop's Bid to Wear Religious Scarf
To: "Law & Religion issues for Law Academics" <religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu>, paul.finkelman at yahoo.com
Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2009, 11:24 AM


I don't understand why counsel would not have argued starting with the
complaint that a rule against wearing *religious* symbols or attire was
not a "neutral law of general applicability" and thus should receive
strict scrutiny under the federal Free Exercise Clause.

David B. Cruz
Professor of Law
University of Southern California Gould School of Law
699 Exposition Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0071
U.S.A.

-----Original Message-----
From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Joel Sogol
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 2:05 AM
To: Religionlaw
Subject: Law.com - 3rd Circuit Rejects Muslim Cop's Bid to Wear
Religious Scarf

A Muslim woman who works as a Philadelphia police officer has lost her
court
battle to wear a religious head scarf on the job now that the 3rd U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that forcing the department to
accommodate her would compromise the city's interest in maintaining
"religious neutrality" in its police force.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202429736190
_______________________________________________
To post, send message to Religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw

Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.  Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.



      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ucla.edu/pipermail/religionlaw/attachments/20090408/370f8cba/attachment.htm>