if $reason is from $religion - then state has no say outside of other existing laws. if the state was “truly” concerned DCF would be called. we already have child safety laws. why have they used those laws? because it’s about intimidation and control instead.

a school should have zero say in what parts of a person’s faith is valid or not unless they are going to use existing mandatory reporting laws. not stupid control via things like dress codes because it’s not even a dog whistle at this point.

I agree with your point.. but i think the problem here is how can the government judge whether one is wearing it out of fear, culture.. or simply a personal choice. Now the fact this is applied to under 14 only cancels out the personal choice thing, but there is no way for the government to differentiate between fear based / internalized misogyny or just simply something they wear because its just a cultural thing to do, A lot of progressive muslims wear hijab simply as a personal choice or as identity

Also a lot of muslims start clinging to stuff like hijab more after they feel their identity is being continuously suppressed, banning it simply attacks a symbol rather than the core issue.. you cant fix coercion by coercing them the other way, it can only be fixed through education and ground up change.. Christianity didn’t modernize while being in under attack, it modernized when people inside weren’t fighting for their existence (they were erasing others lol but i digress), but rather when they had their basic conditions met and were thinking about stuff like liberty, equality, freedom of expression etc.. andeven then it was a very messy and slowly moving discussion

Its a complex issue I think personally, but the fact that the right wingers are the one pushing for this makes me think its definitely them wanting to erase identity/culture than anything about equality as u said