Veil ban has damaged Birmingham’s reputation, says senior city councillor

Birmingham Metropolitan College dropped the ban, hours before hundreds of angry students planned to protest

Birmingham’s reputation has been “damaged” by a Muslim veil ban controversy at a city college, a senior councillor claims.

Waseem Zaffer said it had been a “sad few days” for the city but was glad “commonsense” had prevailed after a dramatic U-turn by education chiefs.

The Mail first revealed on Tuesday how students at Birmingham Metropolitan College had been banned from wearing face coverings, including the niqab, hoodies and caps, for ‘security’ reasons.

Yet the under-fire college dropped the ban on Thursday night, hours before hundreds of angry students had planned a campus protest.

“I think democracy has won here,” said Coun Zaffer, chairman of the council’s social cohesion board. “The college has heard 8,000 people signed a petition in 48 hours and they have been brave enough to admit they were wrong.

“It’s been a sad few days and the reputation of the city and the college has been damaged but I hope we can move on now.”

The college announced its embarrassing climbdown in a statement. It said: “We are concerned that recent media attention is detracting from our core mission of providing high-quality learning.

“As a consequence, we will modify our policies to allow individuals to wear specific items of personal clothing to reflect their cultural values.”

Yet opinions about the decision were split.

Music student Ella Hudson, 17, said: “I think the ban should still be in place as you don’t know who is going in or out.

“I know it’s their choice to wear the veil but other people have been told they can’t wear hoodies and hats.

“It seems a bit unfair.”

More than 8,000 people had signed a National Union of Students online petition calling for the ban to be scrapped during the controversy.

Aaron Kiely, of the NUS, welcomed the u-turn and added: “I’m delighted that the petition attracted so many signatures in such a short amount of time, which affirms just how outrageous the decision to enact this policy was.

“No group of students from any community should feel specifically targeted due to an institutional policy.

“NUS is committed to speaking out for rights to religious freedom, cultural expression and a woman’s right to choose.”

More than 500 people left comments on the Mail’s Facebook page during the controversy.

One said of the college climbdown ‘bloody ridiculous’ and added: “Utterly ashamed that we should allow it to happen.”

But others agreed with the move, with one saying: “Great stuff, glad to see commonsense prevail.”

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