## Facts

- A qualified teacher applicant in Baden-Württemberg, a Muslim woman, sought appointment as a probationary civil servant teacher after completing teacher training and passing the required state examination.
- She intended to wear an Islamic headscarf while teaching, describing it as required by her religious convictions and part of her identity.
- The school authority refused to appoint her, citing “lack of personal aptitude” under the state civil-service statute and arguing the headscarf conflicted with state religious neutrality and could disturb school peace.
- Administrative courts and the Federal Administrative Court upheld the refusal, treating the headscarf as incompatible with the neutrality duties of teachers.
- She filed a constitutional complaint challenging the administrative and judicial decisions as violating freedom of religion and equal access to public office.

## Issues

1. Whether refusing to appoint an otherwise qualified teacher solely because she would wear a religious headscarf in class violates freedom of religion and the constitutional guarantees governing equal access to public office and non-discrimination based on belief.
2. Whether a general prohibition on teachers wearing religious symbols may rest on general civil-service/neutrality clauses, or instead requires a specific and sufficiently definite statute enacted by the state legislature.
3. How to weigh the teacher’s religious freedom against pupils’ and parents’ negative religious freedom, parental educational rights, and the state’s duty of religious-ideological neutrality in public schools.

## Decision

- The court held that Baden-Württemberg law lacked a sufficiently definite statutory basis for a prohibition on teachers wearing a headscarf at school and in lessons.
- The court ruled that treating the headscarf as a per se “personal aptitude” defect, absent a clear legislative rule, violated the complainant’s rights to equal access to public office in conjunction with freedom of religion and the ban on disadvantaging public applicants based on religious belief.
- The challenged judgments and administrative decision were set aside; the matter was remanded for further proceedings.
- Costs of the constitutional complaint were allocated between the federal government and the state.
- The court stated that the legislature may, in principle, enact rules addressing religious references by teachers in schools, within constitutional limits.

## Legal Principles

- Religiously motivated dress, including a headscarf worn from faith-based conviction, falls within constitutional protection of religious freedom.
- Public servants, including teachers, remain holders of fundamental rights; official duties may justify limits, but limits must satisfy constitutional requirements.
- A broad, preemptive restriction on teachers’ religious expression in public schools requires a sufficiently definite legislative basis; general clauses on aptitude or neutrality are not enough to create a categorical ban.
- State neutrality and protection of pupils’ and parents’ negative religious freedom may justify restrictions only through properly enacted law and proportionality-based justification, not through administrative recharacterization of religious conduct as unsuitability.
- Constitutional guarantees of access to public office and non-discrimination on religious grounds bar exclusion from public employment based solely on a protected religious practice without a lawful, sufficiently specific basis.

## Conclusion

The court invalidated the refusal to appoint a qualified teacher who would wear an Islamic headscarf because the state lacked a clear statutory basis for a general ban, and the exclusion unlawfully burdened religious freedom and equal access to public office; any future restrictions must be enacted by the legislature and constitutionally justified against competing rights and neutrality concerns.


Muslim Headscarf Case (Fereshta Ludin), 2 BvR 1436/02, 108 BVerfGE 282 (BVerfG 2003)