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QUEBEC — On the same day a judge was hearing a legal challenge to Bill 21, a new coalition of students studying to become teachers has denounced Quebec’s secularism law as discriminatory.

And they are calling on Education Minister Jean-François Roberge to remind school boards that the bill’s ban on religious symbols for persons in authority does not apply to teaching interns.

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The coalition, which includes representatives of student federations of all the big universities, said they already have examples of at least three school boards unwilling to hire interns because they wear a symbol.

In all, about 40 students studying to be teachers are affected by the law at his university alone, Guillaume Bertrand, external affairs delegate of l’Association des Étudiantes et Étudiant en education de Université de Montréal, told reporters at a news conference.

Instead of being a progressive and inclusive law, Bill 21 has “emerged as an instrument of exclusion,” he added.