One year later, Bill 21’s toll is mounting
Respected teacher covered by grandfather clause quit because she felt she would never be on an equal footing
It has now been a full year since the passage of Bill 21. Not only do its prohibitions on the wearing of “religious symbols” by public employees in positions of authority, including teachers, continue to be felt by those effectively excluded from employment, but the toxic effects on those “grandfathered” are also being seen.
Mariam Aziz is a high school teacher who graduated from Mcgill University with a GPA of 3.9 and membership in the Golden Key society. She had dreamed of teaching since the age of 16.
Any good teacher inspires his or her students through their conviction, discipline and drive, but for Aziz, Bill 21 had a negative impact on all of those things. She was among those already teaching who were allowed to continue to wear a religious symbol, but the laicity law’s passage left her feeling that she was no longer on the same footing as her peers. After Bill 21, her hijab drew attention. She would opt out of group photos and even felt compelled to alter how she would tie her head scarf, in order to draw less attention to herself: she started wearing it more like a turban. These are outrageous things to imagine someone having to do to pursue a career for which they studied hard and showed excellent potential.
Educators teach their students about the importance of dreaming big dreams and working hard to achieve them. Aziz had to abandon her dream to pursue her Master’s degree in Education after realizing that the new law would prevent her from advancing her career and seeking a role in administration in the future.
Aziz had entered the profession for the students, and she gave her students her best, but she says she left because she recognizes that someone needs to speak up on behalf of teachers who are too afraid to do so. Speaking up is harder to do while in the profession. She recognized the importance of using her voice to bring about change. Despite being offered a full-time teaching contract for the coming school year, Aziz says she turned it down when she recognized that it was time to move on.
Aziz’s departure from the teaching profession is a loss not only for her students who adore her, but also for her teachers and colleagues who took to social media to express their dismay after she shared her decision to leave. Her colleagues, former classmates and former teachers all took to posting their accounts of her kind, loving personality and how sad they were to learn of her decision. Some other teachers have opted to stay in the profession, but leave the province, as Amrit Kaur, a turban-wearing Sikh teacher, did at the beginning of this past school year.
Aziz is fortunate. She is an author with excellent writing skills. She opted to start a content writing and marketing strategy company for entrepreneurs, Word Covers, which she will be focusing on full-time. Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to pivot their career after years of working hard to get to where they are.
Still, no one who has spent countless hours and thousands of dollars pursuing a professional designation should have to leave it all behind due to a discriminatory, divisive law. We have had this conversation many times, but the Quebec government chooses not to listen.
The recent global focus on social justice in recent weeks following the death of George Floyd has highlighted instances of systemic discrimination and reminded us all that we have to do better when it comes to dismantling those systems. Bill 21 was a step in the wrong direction. Recognizing that there are some similarities between the struggles different communities face is not hard to do, and we do not need to belong to those communities to do so.