When Fereshta Ludin completed her training to become a grade-school teacher six years ago, she seemed to be laying the groundwork for a classic immigrant success story.
After coming to Germany at age 14, Ms. Ludin, an Afghan-born Muslim, sailed through the education system, married a German, and earned, at 24, the credentials to teach in the country's public schools. She was even qualified to teach the German language.
But education officials prohibited her from taking a public job because she wears a head scarf. The officials, from the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg where Ms. Ludin received her qualifications, contended that the head scarf could have a negative religious influence on schoolchildren.
Ms. Ludin sued. Now, after being rejected by three lower courts, her case is before the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, Germany's highest court. The dispute has divided public opinion and become a touchstone for anxieties about the country's growing Islamic minority. Experts say that the court's decision, which is expected as early as July, could affect German integration policy for years to come.
"The head scarf has become a symbol for the issue of what role Islam can have in Germany," said Mathias Rohe, a professor of law and an expert on Islamic minorities in Europe at the University of Erlangen.
On paper, Ms. Ludin's high court challenge hinges on the extent to which freedom of belief and equal right to public employment do not interfere with the concept of a secular state. Ms. Ludin contends that her head scarf is a matter of personal preference and has no bearing on her ability to teach. Baden-Württemberg's education minister, Annette Schaven, contends that Ms. Ludin's head scarf violates "the strict neutrality of public schools in religious issues."
But Ms. Schaven, a Christian Democrat, has made clear that her primary concerns are about Islam. In denying Ms. Ludin a job in 1998, the minister argued that a head scarf was "understood as a symbol of the exclusion of woman from civil and cultural society."
Both conservatives and many on the left here contend that the head scarf is merely a device of social control in Islamic cultures where women do not enjoy equality with men. In an essay in Der Spiegel last week, Alice Schwarzer, a prominent feminist, wrote that a decision in favor of Ms. Ludin could lead to "parallel worlds" in which a small minority was allowed to practice Islamic law and establish a restrictive social system within Germany's borders. "The woman's veil has been the flag of Islamic crusaders," she wrote.
Ms. Ludin, who now teaches at a private Islamic school in Berlin, responds that the German school officials, not her faith, have limited her professional aspirations.
"It amounts to a ban on employment because of my beliefs," said Ms. Ludin, now 31, in an interview. "As a teacher, I am supposed to educate children to become literate and tolerant. But how can I do this when I have to renounce my own identity, and in a democracy where tolerance is considered a cardinal virtue?"
As Ms. Ludin's supporters point out, she makes an unlikely candidate for Islamic crusader. She is the daughter of a diplomat and a schoolteacher. She spent parts of her early childhood in Germany where her father was briefly stationed and in Saudi Arabia, before immigrating as a teenager to Germany.
By Ms. Ludin's own account, she surprised her family when, as a young adult in Germany, she started wearing a head scarf. She describes the decision as a free choice based on her personal faith. "I am just as against the oppression of women and inequality as any other German," she said. "If the head scarf were a political symbol, I would be the first to take it off."
Baden-Württemberg officials acknowledge that there is no evidence that Ms. Ludin is trying to bring political Islam into the classroom. "We believe that she doesn't want to be a missionary and that she shares our democratic values," Ferdinand Kirchof, the legal representative of Baden-Württemberg, told the Constitutional Court this month. "It has to do with the image that is projected."
The separation of church and state is not as strictly defined in Germany as in the United States. Churches are financed by state-administered taxes, and religious instruction takes place in most German public schools. Nonetheless, the Constitutional Court has placed limits on the use of religious symbols. In a landmark 1995 case, the court forbade hanging a crucifix in a public classroom.
But that ruling, experts point out, related to religious symbols on public buildings, not to personal attire.