A Utah girl suspended from school for wearing a nose ring has sparked discussion about whether schools should be required to take cultural traditions into consideration for dress codes.
Twelve-year-old Suzannah Pabla, was suspended from her school in Bountiful, Utah, for wearing a nose ring, which school officials say violated a school body-piercing ban. The girl, who was born to an American mother and Indian father, said she pierced her nose for Diwali in October as a way to feel closer to her family in India.
Pabla and the school reached a compromise in which she could return to school with a clear nose stud. However, the situation raises the question of whether cultural expressions, like religious expressions, should allow certain exemptions from school dress codes.
Amardeep Singh, an English professor at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., believes Pabla’s cultural right should have allowed her to keep in her nose ring.
“It's true that the nose ring is mainly a cultural thing for most Indians," Singh told the Associated Press. "Even if it is just culture, culture matters. And her right to express or explore it seems to me at least as important as her right to express her religious identity."
The school administrators banned the nose ring, because they said it was based off a cultural choice, and was not a religious requirement.
LinZi, who commented on the blog Sepia Mutiny, believes that differentiating between religious and cultural modes of expression can become confusing for institutions such as schools.
“The part that will become hairy is ‘cultural’ forms of dress,” LinZi wrote. “First of all, a response will deem whether or not that culture is recognized by the school— being part of goth culture is generally not accepted as a 'real' culture by any institutions I have heard of, whereas something like embracing one's Ethiopian culture would most likely be accepted as 'real'."
Other responses on the blog equated the nose ring as a visual expression of a heritage, similar to Muslims who wear head coverings or fundamentalist Christians who only wear skirts or dresses, both of which would be allowed at a school.
Emphasizing the importance of maintaining a cultural tradition, another poster on the blog told of how she turned down a job because the employers had a problem with her nose stud.
“They asked if I would take it out during the day and I said no, because it was important to me. They asked if it was religious, I said, no, it was cultural,” she wrote. “They eventually offered me the job, but, despite being unemployed, I knew I couldn't work there.”
However, posts on Deseret News showed more responses that favored a ban on the nose ring, saying that as a cultural expression, it has no religious backing. Furthermore, it can open the door to question other dress code violations on cultural grounds.
“The school dress code is just that. No exceptions,” wrote Whats Right. “If it is her ‘culture,’ then let her wear it at home…if they make exceptions to her, then (they’re) going to have to do it to lots of others.”
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