Feb 7, 2010 / 17:42 pm
Religious freedom advocates have asked the Oregon legislature for an immediate repeal of a decades-old law that bars Oregon teachers from wearing religious dress in public schools. The law, originally an anti-Catholic measure, was implemented with the support of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.
Current Oregon law bars religious Jews from wearing yarmulkes, religious Sikhs from wearing turbans, and religious Muslim women from wearing a headscarf.
According to the Oregonian, the law was designed to prevent priests and nuns from wearing their clerics and habits in the classroom. It was part of a bill that barred Japanese-Americans from owning property in the state.
A coalition of interfaith civil rights and bar association organizations, including the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, sent a letter to state legislative leaders asking for the repeal of the law.