The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld an Orange County woman's right to sue the County of Orange for its jailers making her remove her hijab, or traditional Islamic headdress, in a Santa Ana courthouse holding cell in 2006.
The high court essentially rejected an appeal by the county of a March ruling by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which found in favor of Souhair Khatib.
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Khatib, who emigrated
from Lebanon
and later became a U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty alongside her husband in June 2006 to a misdemeanor welfare
fraud, for which they were ordered to perform 30 hours of community service each
while on probation.
When the couple went to court to ask for an extension of the community
service deadline, a judge revoked their probation and put them in
holding cells, where deputies, citing security concerns, ordered Khatib to remove her headscarf, which is known as a hijab.
She was then dragged back before the judge without her hijab. The judge then extended the deadline and restored her probation.
Khatib, noting her religion forbids her from exposing her head or neck
to men outside her immediate family, in November 2006 sued the County or Orange and several officials for damages under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000,
which allows prisoners to wear religious garments as long as they do not
pose security risks.
Federal judges in two previous trials ruled against Khatib, noting that federal law makes an exception for inmates in prison cells. But the Ninth Circuit, and now the Supremes, agree that the woman was in a temporary holding facility, not a prison cell, and was thus protected by the federal act.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.