What should a school do if a student has a sincere religious objection to a uniform policy?
In the spirit of the First Amendment, and as a matter of good policy, schools should have opt-out provisions for those students who have a sincere religious objection to a uniform policy. Although the courts have not ruled directly on this point, schools may not be legally required to allow exemptions to their uniform policies under current law. However, at least one court has indicated there was enough ambiguity in a case over religious objections to a dress code to have justified a trial. In that case, the family of an elementary school student in North Carolina obtained a settlement in a federal lawsuit that provided a religious exemption to the school’s uniform policy. Aaron Ganues had been suspended twice for not wearing a school uniform. His great-grandmother-Aaron’s guardian and a local minister- argued that wearing the uniforms would conflict with the family’s religious beliefs that uniforms teach students to obey authority mindlessly, making them vulnerable to the devil. The s
