“Freedom of choice” schooling helps explain how in Charlotte, a decade after theBrowndecision, 66 of the district’s 109 schoolsremained A year before, Masood had started wearing hijab, which she describes as “a deeply personal decision about...centering my faith as a visible part of my identity.” After that day, she says, “Our mosque held meetings on whether the women should remove their hijabs, if the men should shave their beards.” completely segregated and only 9% of Black students attended an integrated school. Bint Gladys herself started wearing hijab two years after 9/11, but often took it off before going into school. “The first day I actually wore it inside," she says, “a boy pulled it off my head.” On bint Gladys's behalf, someone told a teacher and she says the boy was expelled. But instead of relief, bint Gladys “felt the school turned against [her],” and she heard “whispers of ‘terrorist’ at lunch and in the hall.” Afraid of how her dad would respond, she never told her parents about the bullying. “I deeply internalized bad messages about myself, my religion, and my culture,” she says. "To an extent, a lot of other Muslims did this too, mostly out of survival.”