Teacher accused of forcibly removing Muslim 2nd grader’s hijab

MAPLEWOOD, N.J. (WCBS) – A college district in Essex County, New Jersey, is investigating an allegation of discrimination by a teacher from a 7-year-aged Muslim university student.

Cassandra Wyatt’s loved ones is Muslim. Her 7-yr-aged daughter Sumayyah and her sister have been donning the hijab, a regular masking for the hair and neck, considering that they ended up pretty young.

“I try out to teach them modesty and instruct them about what God would like us to do and what is our goal here,” Wyatt claimed.

Wyatt suggests Sumayyah’s 2nd grade instructor at Seth Boyden Elementary Faculty in Maplewood, New Jersey, forcefully taken out the hijab from her head Wednesday.

“She reported, ‘Yes, Mommy, she pulled my hijab off… She walked up to me declaring you can’t have on that in right here, and then, she pulled it off.’ And when she went to pull it off, Sumayyah was attempting to maintain it… and then, she finally received it off, appeared at her hair and claimed, ‘Well, your hair is pleasant.’ Sumayyah said, ‘Oh, thank you’ and put her hijab back on. And the total whole class seen it,” Wyatt said.

There is now an investigation into the incident.

The New Jersey chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, a civil rights advocacy group for Muslims, is calling for the teacher’s removing.

“The teacher not only set her hands on her, removed her headscarf. This is, of study course, humiliating for any Muslim lady to be exposed this way in general public,” mentioned Selaedin Maksut, the govt director for CAIR-NJ.

The South Orange-Maplewood University District states the team associates concerned are entitled to owing process prior to any action is taken. It also claims personnel and pupil issues are kept private because of to authorized obligations.

Wyatt phone calls the hijab a kind of God’s protection. She says Sumayyah is traumatized and no longer wishes to put on it.

“The initially time we arrived outdoors, which was the subsequent day… 2 times she took her hijab off her head, and she sort of balled it up,” she mentioned.

Sumayyah has not been again to university considering the fact that the alleged incident.

The university district wrote in a statement that “regardless of the success of the investigation, we are committed to restorative methods to help our students, team and family members system the social-psychological harms carried out.”

CAIR-NJ wants the university to consider even more methods to deal with the issue, this sort of as coaching lecturers and adopting a curriculum that permits students to learn additional about Islam.

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