Recently, a Muslim woman was arrested and asked to remove her hijab while being processed for a vehicle violation in St. Louis, Mo.
Although jails and prisons do have standard procedures to following when processing people — in this case to ensure the woman was not hiding anything inside her hijab — there should be alternative procedures for situations such as this. One proposal made would allow female officers to give the Muslim woman another piece of head covering and take a photo without the scarf in private to help make them feel more comfortable.
This proposal could be beneficial to both parties. Even though the woman personally felt her religious rights were violated, law enforcement officers were simply doing their job. It would be nice for them to be able to be sensitive to her religious beliefs, but there is a strict process when entering any prison or jail that needs to be followed for safety reasons.
In order for the country to work as needed, there will always be restrictions on freedom. Yes, it is important to fight for freedom, but the country would not run smoothly if everyone was allowed to do every single thing that they wanted to do. As students we need to recognize when it is right and wrong to fight for our rights.
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