After reading headlines, Pamela Smith, Bertha Lopez and Cheryl Cox to fight gender discrimination?

What do Chula Vista Elementary School District board members have in common with a religious Canadian man who demanded modesty from his daughter?

Gender discrimination.

Both stories were in the news today. The odd thing here is that the abuse in Canada was committed by a man and his son who are now charged with crimes, while the wrongdoing in California was ordered by a group that consisted mostly of women.

The school board members who voted to discriminate against Danielle Coziahr were three women and two men. Last Friday, a San Diego jury ordered the school district to pay Coziahr $1 million. But the perpetrators will not be charged with wrongdoing. They are above the law.

Here's what I'm guessing:

Pamela Smith, Bertha Lopez and Cheryl Cox aren't completely corrupted by their positions, and have actually had a change of heart regarding their firing of Danielle Cozaihr for having a young child while working at a school where probationary teachers were not allowed to have young children. The principal, Alex Cortes, had been picked by administrators Tom Cruz and Lowell Billings to put an end to the collegial spirit at Silverwing Elementary School. During the trial, the superintendent testified that the first-year principal had his "marching orders."


Here is the Reuters report about the Canadian tragedy:

Dad Allegedly Kills Girl Over Head Scarf
By Jonathan Spicer
Reuters
2007-12-11

TORONTO - A Canadian teenager who was said to have clashed with her father about whether she should wear a traditional Muslim head scarf died of injuries late on Monday, and her father told police he had killed her.

A memorial for Aqsa Parvez is set up at her high school near Toronto. Some of her classmates were quoted as saying she wore traditional Muslim dress when leaving her house in the morning, but would change into other clothes in school washrooms.

Aqsa Parvez, 16, was found without a pulse in her home in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga earlier on Monday. She was resuscitated by paramedics, treated at two hospitals, and later succumbed to her injuries, police said on Tuesday.

Her father, 57-year-old Muhammad Parvez, has been charged with murder and was remanded back into custody after his first court appearance early on Tuesday.

"There was a 911 call placed by a man who indicated that he had just killed his daughter," Jodi Dawson, a constable with Peel Regional Police, told Reuters. "Everything else is evidentiary in nature and the investigation is in its preliminary stages at this point."

The victim's brother, Waqas Parvez, 26, was arrested and charged with obstructing police.

The story was on the front pages of Canadian newspapers on Tuesday. The newspapers quoted friends and schoolmates of the victim as saying she argued with her father over wearing a hijab, the traditional head scarf worn by Muslim females.

Photos of the teen retrieved from a social networking Web site show her in Western dress with her long dark hair loose.

"She was always scared of her dad, she was always scared of her brother," the Toronto Star quoted a classmate as saying.

Others were quoted as saying the girl wore traditional Muslim dress when leaving the house in the morning, but would change into other clothes in school washrooms.

Dawson said investigators will likely speak to the victim's schoolmates. The father will return for a bail hearing on Wednesday.


Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited.