SEPT. 17, 2007

ISLAM

Ramadan in public schools

Public schools and universities across the country are considering Muslim students’ requests for religious accommodation during Ramadan, the holy month of prayer and fasting, which continues through Oct. 12. Accommodations can include separate rooms where fasting students can go during lunch; places for students to perform daily prayers; the consideration of requests to make Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that ends Ramadan, a school holiday; and the installation of footbaths in restrooms to make it easier for students to follow prayer rituals.

Most school officials try to grant such requests, according to observers, but such accommodations also bring challenges from those who claim they violate church-state separation by giving one religious group special treatment. Here are some of the more recent controversies involving religious accommodations of Muslims and other groups in public schools from the elementary to the university level:
• The San Diego Unified School District is under scrutiny after allowing Muslim students at Carver Elementary School 15 minutes a day for prayer. A teacher claimed the students were led in prayer by a school aide, a violation of U.S. Department of Education guidelines. The school is now being monitored by religious and civil rights groups. (See a July 2, 2007, San Diego Union-Tribune story.)
• The University of Michigan-Dearborn is steeped in controversy after a decision to use $25,000 in student fees to install footbaths in campus restrooms. The footbaths are seen as an accommodation for Muslim students, who must wash their feet and hands before prayer. The Minneapolis Community and Technical College was bombarded with hate mail when it, too, announced plans to install footbaths. (See an Aug. 29, 2007, Washington Times story.)
• In September the New York City-based Stop the Madrassa coalition announced the launch of a national organization, Citizens for American Values in Public Education. The group’s news release says it will “expand the fight nationwide to stop the imposition of radical Islamist agendas in curricula, Arabic language programs, history classes, textbooks, teacher training, and charter schools,” which the group considers unconstitutional religious accommodation. It says the organization will begin distributing a publication called “Stop the Madrassa: A Citizens Guide to Islamist Curricula in Public Schools” nationally.
• The opening of two public schools that cater to two particular cultural groups has raised questions about religious accommodation and whether public funds should support schools with religious focuses. In New York, the newly opened Khalil Gibran International Academy emphasizes Arabic, and in Hollywood, Fla., the Ben Gamla Charter School emphasizes Hebrew. Both have drawn critics. (See a Sept. 5, 2007, story in Education Week.)
• At the forefront of the push for religious accommodation in public universities is the Muslim Students Association, which has formed a Muslim Accommodations Task Force to push for footbaths and prayer rooms. At least 17 universities have footbaths built or under construction, including Boston University, George Washington University and Temple University, and nine universities have prayer rooms designated exclusively for Muslim students, including Stanford University, Emory University and the University of Virginia.
• In New York City, Muslim groups are seeking the recognition of two Muslim holidays as school holidays. (Read a May 16, 2007, Norwood News article posted by New York State Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr.) Also in New York, in February the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review an appeals court decision that allows New York City public schools to display a menorah during Hanukkah and a star and crescent during Ramadan, while banning a crèche at Christmastime. (See a Feb. 22, 2007, Christian Science Monitor story posted by the Roundtable on Religion & Social Welfare Policy.)
• There is a growing movement among Muslims to have Eid al-Fitr, the festival which marks the end of Ramadan, recognized as a public school holiday.
• When a Cincinnati-area school set aside a room for Muslim students during lunch periods for Ramadan in 2006, a local school board official accused the school of being overly accommodating. (Read a Feb. 11, 2007, Boston Globe story about challenges Muslims face in the “heartland” of America and an Oct. 26, 2006, Cincinnati Enquirer story about the Ramadan debate. The latter is posted by Jewsonfirst.org.)
• A public school in Wiscasset, Maine, opened a “wellness room” for students and staff to use outside of class time for the reduction of stress. The room can be used for many stress-reduction practices, some of which have a religious origin, such as prayer, meditation, yoga and Reiki, which sparked a community debate. (Read an Aug. 26, 2007, New York Times column by Harvard University law professor Noah Feldman in which he holds up the wellness room as a good solution to a church-state conflict in schools. It’s posted by Harvard Law School.)

Why it matters

Public schools are one of the primary places where Americans negotiate how to live with their religious differences. School officials often find themselves confronting gray areas where laws and court rulings aren’t clear. These challenges are becoming more common as the country becomes religiously diverse and as various groups become more committed to the practice or public expression of their faith.

Questions for reporters

How do schools in your area accommodate Muslim students requests during Ramadan? What do non-Muslim students, parents and educators think about the accommodations? Is there a push to make Eid al-Fitr or other religious holidays school holidays in your area?

Click the map for interview sources in your state and region

For more sources, consult ReligionLink’s guide to Muslim experts and organizations.

• Salam Al-Marayati is executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Contact 213-383-3443 (in Los Angeles), 202-547-7701 (in Washington, D.C.), salam@mpac.org.
• Ihsan Bagby is an associate professor of Islamic studies in the department of modern and classical languages, literatures and cultures at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. He studies Muslims in the United States. In 2001 he published the results of the first comprehensive study of mosques in America for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, on whose board he serves. Contact 859-257-9638, iabagb2@uky.edu.
• Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State debated the issue of religious accommodation in public schools on the Fox television program “Big Story Weekend” on July 30, 2007. Contact 202-466-3234, boston@au.org.
• Brad Dacus is the chief counsel of the Pacific Justice Institute in Sacramento, Calif., a nonprofit legal defense organization that is helping to develop a districtwide prayer policy for the San Diego Unified School District. Contact 916-857-6900.
• Noah Feldman is a law professor at Harvard University and adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He wrote an Aug. 26, 2007, article for The New York Times Sunday Magazine (posted by Harvard Law School) on current conflicts over religion in public schools in which he described the footbaths at the University of Michigan as a reasonable accommodation. Contact 617-495-9140, nfeldman@law.harvard.edu.
• Derek Gaubatz is director of litigation for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The fund intervened on behalf of Muslim students in Richardson, Texas, when the principal of their high school prevented them from praying during school at Ramadan. See the Becket Fund’s synopsis of the case. Contact via Patrick Gallagher at 202-349-7204, pgallagher@becketfund.org.
• Jeremy Gunn is director of the Freedom of Religion and Belief program at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York. He has said some accommodations for Muslims, such as the footbaths at the University of Michigan, are in a murky area of the law. He can discuss religious expression in schools both in the U.S. and throughout the world. Contact via John Kennedy, 212-549-2666, media@aclu.org.
• Charles Haynes is a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center of the Freedom Forum. He has written that the line between reasonable religious accommodation and the violation of the Establishment Clause is razor-thin and that allowing students to pray during school is reasonable, but that releasing them from class to attend a prayer service on school grounds is a violation of the Constitution. He can discuss cases of religious accommodation in public schools. Contact 703-528-0800, chaynes@freedomforum.org.
• M. Zuhdi Jasser is founder and chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, which promotes separation of mosque and state. He has said that “unusual accommodations” for one faith is not pluralism. AIFD is based in Phoenix, Ariz. Contact 602-254-1840.
• Edina Lekovic is the communications director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. She debated the subject of religious accommodation in the public schools on the Fox television program “Big Story Weekend” on July 30, 2007. She said she did not think most Muslims would support a school-sanctioned prayer. Contact communications@mpac.org.
• Hadia Mubarak is a senior researcher at the Georgetown University Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and became the first woman elected as president of the Muslim Students Association in 2004. She is the author of a paper titled “How Muslim Students Negotiate Their Religious Identity and Practices in an Undergraduate Setting.” Contact hm85@georgetown.edu.
• Elinor Pierce is a senior researcher at Harvard University’s Pluralism Project. She can discuss the effort to recognize Eid al-Fitr as a public school holiday. Contact 617-496-2481.
• Jane I. Smith is professor of Islamic studies and co-director of the Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. She specializes in Muslim communities in America. She is co-editor of the journal The Muslim World. Contact 860-509-9532, jismith@hartsem.edu.
• Stop the Madrassa Coalition was formed after the opening of Khalil Gibran International Academy, a charter school that focuses on teaching Arabic. Contact via Christine Brim, 703-425-3267, christine@vigilantfreedom.com.
• Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, has spoken out against the display of religious symbols in public schools. The group recently aligned itself with the Stop the Madrassa Coalition to challenge public funding of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, an Arabic language charter school, in New York City. Contact via Kiera McCaffrey, director of communications, 212-371-3191, catalyst@catholicleague.org.
• Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy, a nonprofit that looks for threats to American security and works to draw public and government attention to those threats. He is a supporter of the Stop the Madrassa Coalition and has been critical of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in New York City. Contact 202-835-9077.
• Alan Sears is president and general counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit legal defense organization in Scottsdale, Ariz., that supports Christian prayer in the public schools. The group’s Web site marks public school accommodation of Muslims as an “emerging issue.” Contact 1-800-TELL-ADF.
• Richard Thompson is president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, a nonprofit legal defense group in Ann Arbor, Mich., dedicated to protecting the religious liberty of Christians. He has been critical of public schools that accommodate the religious needs of Muslim students. The center recently agreed to represent the Stop the Madrassa Coalition in its challenge to the Khalil Gibran International Academy in New York City. Contact 734-827-2001.
• Lisa Soronen is a lawyer for the National School Boards Association. She can discuss the various lawsuits brought by Muslims and members of other faiths for religious accommodation in the public schools. Contact via Linda Embrey in media relations, 703-838-6737, lembrey@nsba.org.
• John Whitehead is president of the Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties group that represented an Oklahoma Muslim student suspended for wearing a hijab in 2003. He has said that schools are increasingly confronting issues involving religious accommodations for school dress codes. The institute is based in Charlottesville, Va. Contact 434-978-3888.
• One Nation -- a philanthropic collaborative led by Muslims and non-Muslims from leading nonprofit public education and advocacy organizations, think tanks, corporations and academic institutions — lists experts on Islam and education. Contact Sharene Azimi at Fenton Communications, 212-584-5000, sazimi@fenton.com.

Background

• The University of Southern California maintains a Web site on the essentials of Ramadan.
• The Islamic information Web site Sound Vision posts a page describing six steps to getting religious accommodation in the public schools.
• Americans United for the Separation of Church and State publishes a brochure outlining the rights of students and parents to religious expression in the public schools.
• Read a Feb. 28, 2007, story in the St. Petersburg Times about Hillsborough County Schools canceling school holidays that fall on religious holidays for the 2007-08 school year. The change came after divisive debate about which religious holidays should be designated school holidays.
• See a July 21, 2006, Associated Press story posted by USA Today about public schools juggling the holidays of various religions, including Islam.
• Read a Sept. 5, 2005, Associated Press story about a national push by Muslims for religious accommodation in public schools. It’s posted by the First Amendment Center.
• Read a May 9, 2004, commentary by Charles Haynes of the First Amendment Center on how far schools can and should go to accommodate the religious needs of Muslims.