Tribunal Exempts Ban on Muslims – The Australian

In this article, a tribunal sided with the NSW department of Education as they ruled that because these Muslim girls did not have a specific “Ethno-Religious” identity that they could not have suffered from discrimination. The Issue arose as a man complained of his granddaughters being abused, physically, sexually and mentally.
Now this article raises many interesting questions about the way that culture and identity is treated in an educational environment. For example, the fact that they are Muslim and are attending a public school is does not automatically put them in a disadvantaged situation. However inherently it could be argued that through people of the Islamic faith being an under-represented minority in majority of public schools state wide, it could be said that due to the cultural or “Ethno-religious” variance that they are indeed at somewhat of an education disadvantage.
This is of course all depending on the way that education is treated within the public school system. For example, if the education is all inclusive and not so Anglo-centric in style then the students should not feel discriminated against in any way.

A further point would be investigating the geography and locality of their public school. In a public school with more multiculturalism would be more tolerant, where a school that has one over-arching minority would not be so tolerant. This delves into the argument; do we tend to send students to schools where they are less of a minority culturally?
Furthermore, these kids have been identified by a tribunal as not being of any specific Ethno-Religious Identity, this in itself poses a problem, as who gets to decide someone’s ethnic background, or gets to rule whether or not it is discriminable or not. I mostly think that this article is about tolerance within the education system. For example even though the tribunal ruled against the discrimination claim made by the parents of the Muslim Students I believe that the students have to tolerant to the non-Muslim culture as much as the non-Muslim culture has to be tolerant back. Tolerance is a two way street and can only be fulfilled when both parties are equal.

It is in Race and Ethnic Relations That the study of a particular brand of Australian whiteness is explained. In this reading Whiteness and Australianess are closely linked, as Whiteness is identified as something that can be gained over time, as the longer you spend in white culture, such as Australian the more Australian or white you become. It is therefore through similar logic that the Muslim girls are slowly through their whiteness being integrated into Australian culture and therefore would make them indecipherable as Muslims to be discriminated against.

References:

Fozdar Wilding & Hawkins (2009) Chapter 10: Whiteness studies.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/education/tribunal-exempts-bias-on-muslims/story-fn59nlz9-1226482920730