There's something to be said for the fact that it is not a tenet of anyone's faith to wear rosary beads. Whereas, religious Jews are always supposed to keep their heads covered with a yarmulka... and Sikhs are supposed to keep their heads covered with a turban.
You can't ask a religious Jew to take off his yarmulka... ever. Only time he takes it off is in the shower.
There were some issues here in recent years about the turban, specifically dealing with motorcycle helmet laws and hardhat requirements for construction sites.
The original argument was that the turban itself isn't a religious requirement; uncut hair is. The turban is simply a way for observant Sikhs to manage their long hair.
IIRC, the cases eventually worked out that allowing an exemption was deemed reasonable accommodation, because even if the turban itself wasn't directly required by their religion, the fact that it takes 15-30 minutes to put one on or take one off made it impractical for Sikhs to adhere to the normal rules about helmets/hard hats.
Whereas wearing the rosary beads as an article of jewelry is entirely optional.
Yeah. I see the issue of this girl wearing a rosary as something closer to a student wanting to wear an "I (heart) Jesus" t-shirt to graduation instead of the mandated graduation gown than I see it to something where we're talking about accommodating an actual religious
requirement.
Actually, as a former Catholic, the first thing I notice is this - that rosaries are not meant to be worn as necklaces. But I digress...
I agree. I pointed that out before. If religious accommodation is about acknowledging the importance of matters of faith to people, it's silly to take those matters out of the context that made them important in the first place.
I think that this whole gang clothing thing is impossible for the school to stop. Even if they put everyone in the same clothes, gang members would find a way to wear something as a symbol of gang affiliation, even if it was just tying their shoelaces in a particular way, or wearing a sleeve turned up.
I agree that it's hard to police, but I think that banning gang-related symbols and clothing is a part of an overall anti-gang stance, which I think is important.