The Quebec education minister stated that Malala Yousafzai could teach in Quebec, so long as she removed her headscarf.
Malala Yousafzai needs no introduction. She’s a Nobel Prize winner and activist whose work to educate young women around the world has been a beacon of hope, and yet, the Quebec education minister, Jean-François Roberge, had the outright audacity to say that he’d tell Yousafzai that she could teach in Quebec only if she removed her headscarf.
In June, Quebec lawmakers passed a bill banning many public employees from wearing religious symbols to work, and banned those with face coverings—namely women in niqabs—from receiving government services like riding public transportation. The New York Times writes of this banthat “Critics say that the legislation will effectively exclude religious Muslims, Sikhs and Jews from positions of authority in education and law enforcement … They also argue that it threatens to foment Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and fear of other minorities.”
The law itself is absolutely ridiculous and deeply harmful. Imagine telling Yousafzai, a young woman who was shot by the Taliban for attempting to get an education, that she must remove her headscarf to teach. And this goes beyond Yousafzai, too; there are now men and women who will be prevented from working because of their religious beliefs.
Roberge dug himself into a deeper hole by saying that, while it would be an honor for Yousafzai to teach in Quebec, she would have to remove her scarf because in “open and tolerant countries, teachers can’t wear religious symbols while they exercise their functions.”
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