In Italy, a predominantly Catholic country coming to grips with significant Muslim and other minority populations, two legal battles regarding religious symbols in the classroom have recently captured the public’s attention. The father of a Muslim schoolboy in the Abruzzi village of Ofena went to court to have the crucifix removed from the wall of his son’s classroom. Although a court found in his favor, the decision was soon reversed late last year, and members of the community responded by erecting a giant, three-meter crucifix just outside the school. Another high-profile incident in spring of this year involved a Muslim woman who was temporarily denied a teaching position at a private nursery over concern that her headscarf would “scare” young children. The school soon reversed its decision and offered her a job, and the Italian Interior Minister, Giuseppe Pisnau, described the initial refusal to hire the woman as a “mistake.” More recently, courts rejected a plan to educate Catholic and Muslim students in separate rooms, arguing that it would be discriminatory. Throughout these and other controversies, the prevailing tone of Italian courts and policy decisions, as well as the Vatican itself, has been supportive of Italy’s Christian heritage and its symbols while affirming the rights of Muslim minorities to express their religion by wearing the headscarf, in Pisnau’s words, “with dignity and without ostentation.”