A Muslim woman who was barred from teaching in German public schools because she insisted on wearing a headscarf in class took her years-long battle to the country's supreme court Tuesday.
"I see no discrepancy between Islam and the values of freedom and democracy," Fereshta Ludin, a 31-year-old German of Afghan origin, said as she appeared in a blue headscarf to argue her case at the Federal Constitutional Court.
"I regard myself as German and this is about a combination of people who are trying to exclude me and condemn my way of life," she said.
Ludin has suffered a series of defeats in lower courts over officials' 1998 decision not to hire her.
Although Ludin successfully completed an internship teaching English and social studies at a high school near Stuttgart, Baden-Wuerttemberg state education minister Annette Schavan refused to hire her, arguing that the headscarf was political and is "understood as a symbol of the exclusion of woman from civil and cultural society."
"The headscarf is being equated with things I already distanced myself from during my own school years," among them repression of women, Ludin complained Tuesday.
Last year, a federal court upheld previous rulings against Ludin, arguing that while religious freedoms are anchored in the German constitution, the relationship between students and teachers from different religions could be disrupted if teachers display their religious identity.
At the supreme court, Ludin is arguing that the constitution guarantees both freedom of religious expression and unlimited access to public jobs, regardless of religious belief. Ludin now teaches at a private Islamic school in Berlin.
At the end of Tuesday's hearing, she said she might be prepared to consider doing without a headscarf temporarily if it caused serious problems with students and their parents.
A ruling is expected next month. Presiding Judge Winfried Hassemer said Tuesday the supreme court would have to address what effect a headscarf would actually have in a classroom and answer the question of whether it is "just a piece of clothing, a symbol of a religious attitude or a sign of refusal to integrate."
In other cases, courts across Germany also have sided with school officials to prevent teachers from wearing Muslim headscarves.
Last October, however, Germany's federal labor court ruled that a Turkish woman who insisted on wearing a headscarf for her job at a department store had been dismissed illegally. It found that the right to religious freedom outweighs a business's freedom of operation.