From Washington Post
“I didn’t even want to look down at Je’Nan in that moment,” Adams said. “I had not yet told her that she wasn’t allowed to play in the game because of her headscarf.”
The game was at Oxon Hill High School in Prince George’s County on March 3. Hayes, a junior in her first season playing organized basketball, was not allowed to play because she wears a hijab as part of her Muslim faith. Before the contest, the head official informed Adams of a rarely enforced rule requiring “documented evidence” that Hayes needs to cover her head for religious reasons.
“I felt discriminated against and I didn’t feel good at all,” Hayes said. “If it was some reason like my shirt wasn’t the right color or whatever, then I’d be like, ‘okay.’ But because of my religion it took it to a whole different level, and I just felt that it was not right at all.”
The news that Hayes wasn’t allowed to play because of her hijab was first reported by The Current, Watkins Mill’s student newspaper.
Hayes played in the first 24 games of the season without anyone telling her or her coach about the rule, which appears in the National Federation of State High School Associations rule book and is regulated at the state level.
