Aysegul Yilmaz wants to complete her university studies and become a teacher. She also wants to cover her hair with a scarf, as many observant Muslim women do worldwide.
Despite the fact that Turkey is a predominately Muslim country, the law forbids Yilmaz, 21, to do both at the same time.
Similar bans on head scarves in schools in France and Germany are being challenged in court, but in Turkey's secular democracy, the courts force women to check their religion at the doors of all government institutions. Islamic secularists enforce the ban on head scarves with a passion equal to that in strict Islamic countries where women are forced to cover themselves.
Zealous professors determined to keep Islam out of Turkish public life even rejected a knit hat that Yilmaz wore in government buildings in an attempt to circumvent the ban.
"My family doesn't have the money, or I would move to America and live there," said Yilmaz, who outside school wears fashionable silk scarves pulled tightly around her face and pinned to a black prayer cap underneath. "At least in America you can practice your religion and go to school and work."
The pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party - the AKP, in its Turkish initials - which was elected to power last year, ought to be Yilmaz's ally. But it's refused to intervene, to avoid conflict with the fiercely secular military. The party also is mindful of the Western bias against overt expression of Islam at a time when Turkey is seeking admission to the European Union.
Yilmaz and millions of other women in Turkey who wear head scarves consider the ban a violation of their human rights. Hundreds have filed cases before the European human rights court.
A survey conducted by Turkish pollster Tarhan Erdem last May for the daily newspaper Milliyet found that at least 64 percent of Turkish women wear head scarves when they leave their homes. Yet only 20 percent of the 1,881 people questioned thought the head scarf ban was an important issue, which bolsters the elected government's decision not to get involved, said Erdem, a secularist.
To Mazlumder, an Islamic human rights group that campaigns on behalf of women like Yilmaz, such figures are misleading. Worse, the military and police are putting pressure on women not to cover themselves, said Gulden Sonmez, the vice president of the group's Istanbul office.
Clashes between covered women and Turkish authorities have propelled the issue into the public eye. The Turkish president refused to invite the head scarf-wearing wives of Turkey's ruling party to a reception Oct. 29 commemorating modern Turkey's 80th anniversary. Most of the party's members stayed away in protest.
On Nov. 6, a female lawyer who appeared as a defendant before the Turkish Court of Appeals was ordered to leave the courtroom while her case was being heard because she refused to remove her scarf.
"There was no legal standing for a court to make such a ruling based on the clothing of the people. Even if the woman had worn a bathing suit, she has a right to be in court to defend herself," said Sonmez, who also wears a scarf.
Sonmez, herself a lawyer, said she chose not to work in court. "I know that Allah has ordered me to wear it as a person of honor and character and maybe more so as a lawyer," she explained. "How could I defend someone in court when I can't defend myself?"
The separation of state and religion has been on the books since soldier-turned-statesman Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded modern Turkey in 1923. He considered female head coverings a symbol of Islamic militancy.
That sentiment continues today among Turkey's generals and judges, who act as custodians of Ataturk's secular legacy. In 1997, when the military forced the country's first Islamist-led government to step down, it began enforcing the ban on head scarves in public buildings and schools. The widespread victory of another pro-Islamic party last year heightened enforcement.
Sonmez dismissed worries that allowing head scarves will lead to a Turkish theocracy, as in neighboring Iran. She and her associates oppose forcing anyone to cover her hair as Iran does, she said. "What's wrong is that people are forced to make a choice," she added. "Even if they were forced to wear a head scarf, that would be wrong. Both violate our human rights."
At least 10,000 women have filed complaints about the ban to her group since 1997, Sonmez said. The organization also has presented some 300 cases before the European Human Rights Court.
Although they'd looked to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to relax the rules, the government has been keen to shed its theocratic image.
"We must try to represent everybody, not just people with covered hair," said Ibrahim Yildirim, an Istanbul AKP official. "Do they want us to fight for them against the president, against the army chiefs, against the judges? We should be living in this country in peace."
Like the AKP, most women have given up fighting the ban, and are either taking off their scarves at work or school or staying home, Sonmez said. That's what Yilmaz did two years ago, when she began attending class with her hair showing.
"It's like you're naked, psychologically speaking, even when I wear a hat," she said. "But what choice did I have? We are not free to practice our religion here."
Yilmaz, the youngest of four daughters, said she was 17 when she decided to wear a head scarf.
Now she questions whether she will become a teacher when she completes her English degree next summer. "It's a loss for me and a loss for Turkey," she said. "But I have to be able to practice my religion freely."