Now it gets interesting:

Samira Haddad's case before the Equal Opportunities Commission is the first of its kind. It focuses on the obligation for Muslim teachers to wear a headscarf, while their non-Muslim colleagues do not have to.

Samira Haddad was turned down for a post as Arabic teacher at the prestigious Islamic College in Amsterdam because she refuses to wear a headscarf.

She claims the college is discriminating between Muslim and non-Muslim staff. Under Dutch law all employees must be treated equally in religious institutions.

In order to mitigate tensions between Catholics and Protestants, religious education is anchored in the Dutch constitution (article 23), and funded by the state. It’s an underreported fact, but it is crucial to understanding the success of a nation that was essentially founded as a Protestant rebellion (which lasted from 1568 to 1648) against a Catholic monarch. It’s also crucial in understanding how integration of Muslim immigrants failed, as the old mechanism that was devised to mitigate tensions between two native Dutch tribes came to be used, unintentionally, to entirely separate a new immigrant tribe from mainstream Dutch society.

To abolish religious education - as some have suggested - would be a full-frontal assault on one of the country’s basic institutions and therefore unlikely. There is however a clear, present and urgent need to apply some pressure on Muslim schools to become part of Dutch society. It’s hardly an enviable task and whatever government takes it on – left or right – they will get burned doing it, bound to upset some interest group. The guiding principle however as always should be to preserve personal freedom and from that perspective I fail to see how a government can justify outlawing a headscarf. The flip side is that Muslim schools can try and bring forward a constitutional argument to force its teachers to wear a headscarf, but I suspect the courts would not be prepared to support the freedom of religion in schools to such an extent. Therefore, Samira Haddad’s case before the Equal Opportunities Commission is important in establishing that her choice of dress is entirely her choice and can not be impaired by her employer. It will force a rethink of the application of Article 23 without abolishing it.

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Dutch society has been known for the unique way in which religious and scoial tensions were channeled, by way of a system called pillarization. It crumbled in the 1960s and 70s when secularization gained ground, but it is still relevant to understanding how the place works to this day.