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I have been teaching in the Department of Education at Concordia for over 10 years, and Bill 21 — the law that will ban teachers from wearing religious symbols — has hit me and my colleagues hard. While it may be popular with some constituencies, it’s an unjust law that will have no beneficial impact.

Over the years, I’ve had many future teachers come through my classes. The teachers I have taught, including those who wear religious symbols, are ambassadors for broad-mindedness and tolerance. Some supporters of this bill think that it will make the classroom a neutral space that is free from religious influences. But from my standpoint, all it will do is force a handful of promising young people to teach elsewhere.

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Secularism, the concept underlying this bill, is something we’ve been concerned about for a long time in Western societies. Being committed to secularism means buying into two ideas: first, we don’t want our government to endorse one religious view over another, and second, we don’t want particular religious views having an undue influence on government. An overwhelming majority of Quebecers support secularism in this basic form, but the consensus breaks down when some argue for a stricter form of secularism that bans religious symbols from some parts of public life.