The Department of Justice announced on March 30 that it will seek to intervene in a lawsuit pending against the Muskogee, Oklahoma Public School District to protect the right of a sixth-grade Muslim girl to wear a headscarf to school, a press release said.

According to the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, the student was twice suspended from the Benjamin Franklin Science Academy for refusing to take off her headscarf, or hijab, after being told that it violated the school’s dress code.

That code prohibits students from wearing hats, caps, bandanas, or jacket hoods inside school buildings. The girl and her parents filed suit in October 2003. The Justice Department, in addition to its complaint, filed a motion to intervene in the private litigation.

“No student should be forced to choose between following her faith and enjoying the benefits of a public education,” Assistant Attorney General R. Alexander Acosta, was quoted as saying in the release.

The complaint alleges that the school district violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which bars states from applying dress codes in an inconsistent and discriminatory manner.