The recent French ban of all ostentatious religious symbols in state schools in France has refueled a contentious debate about religion and its place in schools. The justification for the ban is premised on the belief that there should be a strict separation between church and state, known in French as laicite. Yet in doing so, it calls into question several philosophical dilemmas regarding toleration in a pluralist society (Rawls,1993, 2001), special protections for minority groups through collective rights (Kymlicka 1989, 1995), and concerns about internal practices in faith groups that may inhibit vulnerable members (Moller-Okin, 1999; Gutmann, 2002). Proponents in favour of the ban claim the following. First, France has historically had a strict separation of church and state, briefly following the French revolution, and subsequently, put into legislation in 1905. In recent years this legislation has been applied when a number of Muslim girls were expelled for wearing the hijab in the 1990s. Second, due to an increasing immigrant population of Muslims in France, providing certain collective protections for the French culture may be warranted given its increasing heterogeneous population and decreasing French majority. Third, Muslim girls may be vulnerable as members of within hierarchical tradition and may thus warrant certain protections from the state to ensure their capacity to become free and equal persons. Some initial surveys indicate that close to 50% Muslim women are in favour of the prohibition, which raises suspicions that Muslim women do require assistance through state legislation as a means towards gender equality (Economist, 2004). However, the concerns about this legislation weigh equally heavily. The implementation of laicite often applied to the prohibition of schools to provide religious instruction. Historically, laicite did not apply to individuals wearing religious symbols to schools. It was not until 1937 that a law was put in place that prohibited the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols. Even so, the law has thus far only extended to 'ostentatious' religious symbols such as the hijab, as opposed to permissible religious symbols such as small crucifixes or yarmulkes. Second, the nature of the increasing pluralist society in France does not necessarily warrant the curtailment of other individuals' rights. In a pluralist society, reasonable doctrines should be allowed under the principle of toleration. France's move toward a strictly secular state is in violation of the proposed European Union constitution. Finally, the practice of wearing headscarves should not automatically assume that Muslim girls' autonomy will be compromised. One of the rationales given for wearing headscarves is to protect girls from sexual harassment and, more generally, having girls viewed as sexual objects. This paper addresses these contested positions in greater depth, and concludes that France has taken an unreasonable stance and is unwarranted in prohibiting girls from wearing headscarves. References Economist (5 February 2004) The war of the headscarves. The Economist. London: The Economist Newspaper Ltd. pp. 25-27. Gutmann, A. (1996) Challenges of multiculturalism in democratic education. In Robert Fullinwider (ed) Public education in a multicultural society: policy, theory, critique. Gutmann, A. (2002) Identity in Democracy, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kymlicka, W. (1989) Liberalism, Community and Culture, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kymlicka, W. (1995) Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moller-Okin, S. (1999) Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Edited by Joshua Cohen, Mathew Howard, and Martha Nussbaum. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rawls, J. (1993) Political Liberalism, New York: Columbia University Press. Rawls, J. (2001) Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, Edited by Erin Kelly. London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.