Mass. college Reverses Veil Ban

by E Wayne Ross on January 8, 2010

Inside Higher Ed: College Reverses Veil Ban

After days of news media scrutiny and a federal civil liberties complaint, a Massachusetts college backed down Thursday from its security policy that seemed to be the nation’s first ban on the veils worn by some Muslim women.

The Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences announced that its identification rule requiring students to wear their ID cards and barring “any head covering that obscures a student’s face … either on campus or at clinical sites” — which went into effect on January 1 — has been amended to permit students to wear face-obscuring coverings for religious reasons.