ABSTRACT
The specific study of legal restrictions on public educators’ religious garb is a study of the struggle that public schools have to balance competing rights. Under Sherbert, it is not constitutionally permissible to conclude that a least restrictive alternative exists because a person can look for employment in companies that do not schedule work on their Sabbath. A good-faith attempt to propose a least restrictive alternative would be to, at least, offer religious-garb-wearing teachers’ employment in the school’s administration or in the district’s headquarters or another non-teaching job. The federal government’s call for contextual determinations is a distinct legal strategy from Pennsylvania’s current statutory ban on religious garb worn by public schoolteachers. Religious garb is more benign than a blatant act of proselytization or indoctrination. Public schools may consider taking relevant differences into account when examining the constitutionality of anti-religious-garb statutes. Free schools have a special duty to promote liberty for all members of society, especially the most vulnerable.
