Over on our
Facebook page, I posted
a picture I found on the Being
Liberal page, and have posted here, dealing with prayer in public schools. A gentleman left a comment stating that the
premise of the meme was false because often school staff do not understand or
know the law. To emphasize his point, he
linked to a story titled Muslim
Prayer Allowed in San Diego--Christian Prayer Denied in Bayonne.
From the story –
Somehow I missed hearing about this
story until yesterday, and when I did so, I listened carefully, then read
thoroughly about this development. My ire is raised…for it is reported that in
Carver, a San Diego elementary
public school, a time during class hours has been set aside for Muslim led
prayers, and that the school is now offering classes in Arabic.
Carver school no longer serves pork
and other foods which conflict with fundamental Muslims diet restrictions. In
addition, single gender classes for girls have been set up there.
When I read this, my mind raced to
Jeremy Jerschina, the valedictorian of his graduating class, who was forbidden
to include a prayer in his address to the assembled people during the
ceremonies.
The author went on to link and post quotes from two stories:
1) Muslim
prayers in school debated and 2) a story about a controversy over a prayer
in the Valedictory Address of student Jeremy Jerschina (unfortunately the link
to the original story was broken). The opening
five paragraphs and the story overview were quoted, but the story went on to
add more context to the situation.
Supporters of Carver say such an
accommodation is legal, if not mandatory, under the law. They note the district
and others have been sued for not accommodating religious needs on the same
level as non-religious needs, such as a medical appointment.
Islam requires its adherents to
pray at prescribed times, one of which falls during the school day.
While some parents say they care
more about their children's education than a debate about religious freedom,
the allegations – made at a school board meeting in April – have made Carver
the subject of heated discussions on conservative talk radio. District officials
have been besieged by letters and phone calls, some laced with invective.
The issue has drawn the attention
of national groups concerned about civil rights and religious liberty. The
Council on American-Islamic Relations, Anti-Defamation League, American Civil
Liberties Union and the Pacific Justice Institute are some of the groups
monitoring developments in California 's
second-largest school district.
Among the critics is Richard
Thompson, president and chief counsel with the nonprofit, Michigan-based Thomas
More Law Center
He said he's “against double
standards being used,” such as when there is a specific period for Muslim
students to pray and not a similar arrangement for Christians.
Carver's supporters noted that
Christianity and other religions, unlike Islam, do not require their followers
to pray at specific times that fall within school hours, when children by law
must be in school. Amid the controversy, the district is studying alternatives
to the break to accommodate student prayer.
Capitalizing on what it considers a
precedent-setting opportunity created by the Carver situation, the
Sacramento-based Pacific Justice Institute has offered to help craft a district
wide “Daily Prayer Time Policy.”
In a letter, the religious-rights
organization urged the district to broaden its accommodations to Christians and
Jews by setting aside separate classrooms for daily prayer and to permit
rabbis, priests and other religious figures to lead children in worship on
campuses.
A lawyer representing the district
said those ideas would violate the Constitution's prohibition against
government establishment of religion.
The uproar over Carver comes as
schools across the country grapple with how to accommodate growing Muslim
populations. In recent weeks, the University
of Michigan Dearborn
campus has been divided over using student fees to install foot-washing
stations on campus to make it easier for Muslim students to cleanse themselves
before prayer.
“These things are surfacing more
and more in many places where large communities of Muslims are coming in and
trying to say this is our right,” said Antoine Mefleh, a non-Muslim who is an
Arabic language instructor with the Minneapolis
public schools.
His school allows Muslim students
to organize an hour of prayer on Fridays – Muslims typically have Friday
congregational prayers – and make up class work they miss as a result. During
the rest of the week, students pray during lunch or recess.
The San Diego
chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations supports the Carver
program.
“Our country is transforming
demographically, religiously,” said Edgar Hopida, the chapter's public
relations director. “Our country has to now accommodate things that are not
traditionally accounted for before.”
Carol Clipper, who is the guardian
of two grandchildren enrolled in the school's Arabic program, said she believes
students should be “given the freedom” to pray. Clipper is Christian, and her
grandchildren are being raised in both Islam and Christianity.
“I take them to the mosque and they
go to church with me,” she said.
Another parent, Tony Peregrino,
whose son is not in the Arabic program, said he's OK with the Muslim students
praying. What he cares about, he said, is that teachers are doing their job,
and his son's education is not affected.
Courts have ruled on a series of
school prayer cases over the past half-century, but legal scholars say a lack
of clarity remains.
“This is an area where the law is
notoriously erratic,” said Steven Smith, a constitutional law professor at the University
of San Diego
Voluntary prayers by students are
protected private speech, the courts have said. That means students can say
grace before a meal and have Bible study clubs on campus, and several San
Diego schools do. Public school employees, however,
cannot lead children in prayer on campus.
Students also can be excused for
religious holidays, such as Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, and Good
Friday during Holy Week.
The federal Equal Access Act
requires that extracurricular school clubs, religious and non-religious, be
treated equally.
San Diego Unified was sued in 1993
when it denied a University City High
School
Brent North, a lawyer retained by
the district to address concerns related to the Carver program, said the
district learned from the University City High case to be “careful about
restricting students' right to their own private religious expression,
including when it's on campus.”
The district cites Department of
Education guidelines on prayer:
“Where school officials have a
practice of excusing students from class on the basis of parents' requests for
accommodation of non-religious needs, religiously motivated requests for
excusal may not be accorded less favorable treatment.”
The midday
prayer for Muslims here generally falls between 1 and 2 p.m. , North said, and that is before the school day
ends.
“What is unique about this request
is the specificity of the religious requirement that a prayer be offered at a
certain time on the clock,” he said.
North went on to say, “The
district's legal obligation in response to a request that a prayer must be
performed at a particular time is to treat that request the same as it would
treat a student's request to receive an insulin shot at a particular time.”
Mefleh, the Minneapolis Arabic
instructor, said he allows his Muslim students to pray at the end of class
during the month long observance of Ramadan, Islam's holiest period.
“Some accommodation has to come
from both sides,” he said. “I just tell them prayer is good. Class is good,
too. Your time is precious. You have to come to an agreement with them without
making a big fuss. If you want to pray, I understand, but I don't want to
interrupt the class too much.”
Obviously there is a lot going on here and I don’t begrudge
the author of the post for not quoting the entire news article, in fact she explicitly
suggests that people read both stories completely and carefully.
After reading the story in its entirety, it appears to me
that officials at San Diego public school district and at this school are doing
two things: 1) trying to avoid a lawsuit from the parents of the Muslim
students, and 2) trying to make the transition from the closed charter school
to Carver Elementary as painless as possible for those 100 Muslim
students. While I can understand why
they made the decision that they did, I think it was a big mistake.
Religion in public schools is an all-or-nothing thing. You cannot allow the formation of a Christian
group/club (like the Fellowship for Christian Athletes) without also allowing
the formation of Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or Atheist groups (just to name a
few). The best policy, in my humble
opinion, is to leave them all out but ultimately that is a decision for the
local community to make.
The difference with this situation though is that it is not
about the use of school facilities for a club or after-school activity. This is about setting aside time from class
for prayer, specifically prayer for Muslims, and that is wrong. I understand that Islam doctrine instructs
followers to pray at specific times of the day; unfortunately that does not
give them the right to completely disrupt class schedules in a public
school. Muslims are perfectly free to
worship as they wish at home and students are well within their legal rights to
pray to themselves while in school, but a school that sets aside specific times
for prayer for one group of students is without a doubt breaking the law.
If this precedent is allowed to stand, it will open a Pandora’s
Box of demands from other religions that student’s of their faiths be afforded
the same accommodations. If a parent
wants his/her child to attend a school that provides religious teachings and
prayer, then by all means they are free to find a private school that will fit
their needs. It is not the job of the
public education system to support religion—that is the religious community’s
job. Also, the argument that religious accommodations
are basically the same as medical accommodations is laughable. There is a world of difference between making
sure that, for example, a student in a wheelchair is able to safely traverse
the school campus and access facilities and giving someone time to pray.
Public schools, like our government and nation, are, and
should always, be secular in nature. It
is not the job of the government or a teacher to promote religion. Period.
