Posted on 09/03/2005 8:06:40 AM PDT by Pikamax
Parents push public schools to be more Muslim-friendly 9/3/2005, 8:31 a.m. ET By WAYNE PARRY The Associated Press
CLIFFSIDE PARK, N.J. (AP) — Yasmeen Elsamra had a simple request: While her classmates were eating lunch, she wanted to go off by herself for a few moments and pray.
The 14-year-old was told she couldn't, and went home distraught that afternoon in October 2003. Praying five times a day is a cornerstone of her Muslim faith.
"If I wasn't allowed to pray my second prayer at school, I couldn't do it at home," she said. "When school finishes, the third prayer begins."
Her family contacted a Muslim advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which asked the school district to reconsider. Eventually, the district acknowledged it had no policy preventing a student from praying on his or her own during free time, and allowed Yasmine to use an empty classroom to unfurl her prayer rug, face Mecca and touch her head to the floor in a few moments of worship.
Her case was part of a nationwide grassroots effort by Muslim parents to make public schools more friendly and accommodating to Muslim students. The movement gained strength following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
"The reality for many Muslim students in public schools is very difficult," said Ingrid Mattson, vice president of the Islamic Society of North America. "It's highly stressful."
She said her children were sometimes taunted in their Connecticut school district.
"The kids will say, `Hey Osama, do you have a bomb? Are you going to blow us up?' " she said. "My daughter has had people try to pull her head scarf off, or say, `What are you doing with that rag on your head?' But they have also had friends who defended them."
Noor Ennab, a fifth grader who attends the private Muslim Al-Noor School in Brooklyn, N.Y., said she was driven out of her public school by post-Sept. 11 harassment.
"Before that (the 2001 terror attacks) happened, we were treated so kind," she said. "Now it's like, '`You're a terrorist; get out of this country.' "
Older students also have had problems. Debra Mason of Jersey City dropped out of Fairleigh Dickinson University's nursing program after she said she was told to remove her head covering during patient rounds. The New Jersey civil rights division recently found probable cause to proceed with an investigation into whether the school violated her rights. The school declined comment on the case.
Mason said she can't imagine how anyone could feel uncomfortable seeing a nurse with a head scarf, particularly in northern New Jersey.
"It's not like no one's ever seen a Muslim," she said. "There are Muslim doctors everywhere, Muslim nurses, and Muslim patients."
Some school districts are starting to take notice. A zero-tolerance policy on harassment of Muslim students was adopted by the Broward County school board in Florida in March 2003, just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began.
In February, Muslim community leaders led the Pledge of Allegiance at a San Antonio high school as part of a daylong conference on Islam.
Paterson, N.J., home to the state's largest Arab-American community, lets some students out of class early on Friday to attend prayers with their parents' permission, and is one of a handful of New Jersey districts that closes schools for Eid-al-Fitr, a Muslim religious holiday.
"You're seeing a lot of schools becoming more sensitive this way," said Michael Yaple, a spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association. "A lot of these decisions are based on demographics. For generations, the major school holidays were Christian and Jewish ones. But New Jersey has become so diverse that you're seeing more districts seeing to the needs of their students and staff."
Bassima Mustafa, a civics teacher in Paterson, said it is crucial that students feel comfortable and welcome in the classroom.
"A majority of our students are immigrants or the children of immigrants," she said. "It's going to spread as the population increases."
But despite a large Muslim student population, efforts to add Eid to the school holiday calendar fizzled earlier this year in Baltimore, where the school board voted 10-0 against the proposal. That disappointed Samira Hussein, a parent of four and an educator who helped nudge the Montgomery County school district in Maryland toward a more inclusive curriculum.
She and others got the district to send teachers and administrators to a special Ramadan celebration each fall at local mosques marking the holiest month of the Muslim calendar. The teachers ate lunch there and spoke to parents and students about Islam and how it intersects with the school day, particularly what it feels like to fast during the day while other children eat.
Now, her kids and other Muslim students sit at a cafeteria table doing homework, playing games or just talking during lunch.
That's the kind of simple accommodation that Aliya Rohani wishes every Muslim student could have.
"I don't want to be hated by other people," said Rohani, who attends the Al-Noor School in Brooklyn and said she was harassed by non-Muslims after 9/11. "I didn't do anything wrong. I would go home to my mom and cry. I started saying, `No, I'm not Arabic.' But I don't want to deny who I am."
"Praying five times a day is a cornerstone of her Muslim faith."
So is prayer for Christians. Oh, wait, the overwhelmingly majority of Xians in the US are white. Never mind.
THERE IS NO DAMN WAY IN HELL WE ARE GOING TO BE FORCED TO ACCOMODATE MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS GET SHOVED INTO THE GUTTER .. NO WAY IN HELL!!!
My granddaughters are Christians and are not allowed to even take their Bibles to school .. but we have to allow another religion to pray .. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
Suddenly .. the muslim supporters don't have any problem with NOT SUPPORTING THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.
I detest the hyper-secularism that stamps out school prayer. But even given that ridiculous rule, reasonable acommodations should be made for students to observe their faiths, and I think they usually are.
American Christians are harrassed by the public school administrators and the ACLU but Muslims get special treatment. Hmmmmm
If they want to pray to Mecca then they ought to go to Pakistan. Funny we can't even discuss Christian religion in the school but you are a Muslim you can.
BTTT
BTTT
"Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of our Lord Jesus Christ".
Christians are to pray continually, yet our worship is counted as nothing.
I have no problem with this little girl praying - we are founded on freedom of religion after all. However, Christians and Jews should also be allowed to pray, including "giving thanks".
If one of the pillars of Islam is praying 5 times a day, the major emphasis of Christianity is the personal relationship between Jesus and the individual.
This policy is discriminatory.
Why are you still here?
Let's do a mirror image. If she were a Christian in Saudi Arabia would she be allowed to practice her religion?
Where's the ACLU on this?
"If I wasn't allowed to pray my second prayer at school, I couldn't do it at home," she said. "When school finishes, the third prayer begins."
STFU and GTFO! They will bend over backwards to accommodate the Moon Worshippers but you can't have a generic prayer before a football game! Ugh! Anytime I see some hijab-wearing Mohammedan I get a bad reaction......
If you want a school that caters to your faith, go to one that is run by your denomination - it's really quite simple. And that goes for any faith.
"Her case was part of a nationwide grassroots effort by Muslim parents to make public schools more friendly and accommodating to Muslim students"
No, they should move back to the middle east. All American public schools refuse any form of religious acknowledgments...period. If there can't be any christian worshipping in public schools then there should be no muslim worshipping allowed in public schools. No acceptions for anyone.
"The reality for many Muslim students in public schools is very difficult,"
Yeah, life is tough all around. Perhaps her family should relocate to one of those idyllic countries with Islamic religious law based governments.
Title should read this way!
Kill A Commie For Mommie
Seven Dead Monkeys Page O Tunes
Yep. Well after 09/11, the schools even held exercises to teach the Moslem faith to students. They read and memorized texts from the Koran. It even went so far as to have the children think about Jihads and outline one of their own. I'm not infering violence, but still the concept seemed very strange to me. Public schools? The same ones that forbid any Christian prayers, texts or talk of Jesus.
If this didn't reveal the true agenda of the ACLU and the public education system, I don't know what would.
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