Secularity and Religious Identity: The French Headscarf Dilemma

John R. Bowen, Patrick Weil, Jacqueline Bhabha, Sir Keith Ajegbo, and Maleiha Malik explain the history of secularity (laïcite) in France, where it is the State's role to protect individual freedom of conscience and respect of all faiths by keeping religion out of the public sphere. This tradition underlies the banning of head scarves in public schools in 2004. The issue has not played out the same way in England, where there is a history of informal negotiation of the rights of minorities. The speakers were interviewed as part of the 2008 Facing History and Ourselves/Harvard Law School conference entitled Hope, Critique, and Possibility: Universal Rights in Societies of Difference.