Skirting the Issue on Airport Uniform

An airport security guard has filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission because her uniform – in both pant and skirt versions – does not conform to her Islamic faith which instructs modesty in dress.

The employee, Halima Muse, had been wearing the pant uniform for five years until she decided should no longer felt modest in them. After being denied a request from her employer for a longer skirt, she altered the uniform and wore the lengthier version for six months before one of her managers instructed her to comply with the rules. She declined, was suspended without pay, and is now going to the human rights commission, charging religious discrimination.

Apart from the “should she or shouldn’t she be allowed to” questions, I’m wondering how we got to this stage. Again.

While there is no doubt that a healthy democracy must openly and intelligently discuss and review decisions around diversity and “tolerance,” we still have no sense of when religious/cultural accommodation is appropriate or even necessary, or even what it means. We still haven’t matured a collective set of Canadian ideals around what it means to live in a multi-ethnic, yet supposedly secular society. But that isn’t even the main issue; it is merely the context in which this story will feed news headlines for some time to come.

On the one hand, the security company already offers a more “modest” option – the pant uniform. This option served her well for five years until she began feeling that the pants brought too much attention to her curves. Why was it OK for five years, and not OK any longer? What changed? Is there such a thing as a born-again Muslim?

On the other hand, she was allowed to wear the altered uniform for several months. And it was OK. Why was it acceptable for so long before the company weighed in on her with “federal regulations?” Surely, an egregious act by an employee that is worthy of suspension should be noticed and dealt with in a more timely manner. How can the company, with any credibility, say this is no longer acceptable, even though there appeared to be no problem for several months? Did they not notice? These are the people responsible for security at our airports?

Let’s stop and think about this. Muse is filing a religious discrimination suit based on a non-religious article in a non-religious context. There’s no hijab or kirpan here, it’s a skirt. This is not about cultural accommodation or religious diversity. In The Toronto Star this week, she said she was “talking for all women who would like to wear a long skirt – practising Christians, Jewish, Muslim, all of them.”

So why is this being filed as a case of religious discrimination? Sounds and feels much more like a case of sexual discrimination – because last time I checked Christian and Jewish women were not prevented from wearing either the skirt or the pant uniform.

We have enough on our plate in this country on the diversity front, let’s file this one where it belongs and have an honest discussion about it. She is, in my opinion, fighting this case as a woman who would prefer not to have to wear a “sexy” uniform, not as a devout Muslim being persecuted for her faith. If we had a better collective sense of what it means to be an ethnic-Canadian and how we all share our space, we would see this for what it is – a fully justifiable sex discrimination suit.

Let’s keep God out it.