An Egyptian-born Montreal woman has been expelled from Quebec's post-secondary college system for refusing to take off her niqab -- a controversial decision she will contest with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
Last fall, the woman had been attending the CEGEP St. Laurent in Montreal, taking a government-funded French course that seeks to help immigrants adjust to life in Quebec.
But course instructors say they need to be able to look at people while they are speaking to correct their elocution and pronunciation in class, an action that is not possible when a student is wearing a niqab -- a veil that covers all but the eyes.
The woman did take off her niqab in some cases -- to have a student ID picture taken and in some instances when she was speaking privately with a female teacher -- and the school says it worked to accommodate her needs. She once gave an oral presentation with her back turned to her fellow students so other students would not be able to see her.
Paul Bourque, the director-general of the CEGEP St. Laurent, said it reached a point where the woman did not feel comfortable taking off her niqab in the classroom environment where the number of male students outnumbered female students.
The class, Bourque told CTV Montreal, was configured "in a way that it was not easy for her to be hidden from the students."
In the end, the woman "decided to wear her niqab," Borque said.
The situation then became more "tense and confrontational," CTV Montreal's Cindy Sherwin reported.
Eventually, the woman was sent a letter from Quebec's immigration department indicating she had to remove her niqab or choose to leave the class. She was also offered the chance to study online.
The woman refused to remove her niqab and was expelled. She has since filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.
Fo Niemi, head of the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations, said accommodating cultural differences is "a constant balancing act that requires compromise, common sense and insight."
"The issue is, in this case, if the school has undertaken all the reasonable efforts to accommodate her, and it seems it has, because it has tried several formulas and it hasn't worked out," Niemi told CTV Montreal. "Then obviously the question for the human rights commission to decide is whether it has been reasonable."
With a report from CTV Montreal's Cindy Sherwin
