Posted on 07/02/2007 8:50:37 PM PDT by Pikamax
Muslim prayers in school debated
S.D. elementary at center of dispute By Helen Gao UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
July 2, 2007
A San Diego public school has become part of a national debate over religion in schools ever since a substitute teacher publicly condemned an Arabic language program that gives Muslim students time for prayer during school hours.
Carver Elementary in Oak Park added Arabic to its curriculum in September when it suddenly absorbed more than 100 students from a defunct charter school that had served mostly Somali Muslims.
After subbing at Carver, the teacher claimed that religious indoctrination was taking place and said that a school aide had led Muslim students in prayer.
An investigation by the San Diego Unified School District failed to substantiate the allegations. But critics continue to assail Carver for providing a 15-minute break in the classroom each afternoon to accommodate Muslim students who wish to pray. (Those who don't pray can read or write during that non-instructional time.)
Some say the arrangement at Carver constitutes special treatment for a specific religion that is not extended to other faiths. Others believe it crosses the line into endorsement of religion.
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 devoted to “defending the religious freedom of Christians.”
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 districtwide “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's 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 student's request to hold lunchtime Bible fellowship. The court found the district discriminated against religion, because it allowed secular clubs to meet during lunch.
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 monthlong 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.”
Thanks Twink! Lots and lots more - coming.
Christians can pray in public school.
I’m a volunteer for a lunch time club for Christian kids (Campus Life which is part of Kids for Christ), and it meets in a public middle school in California.
As long as we get parental permission and we have a teacher that will be in the room with us, the kids can participate and learn about Christ and pray.
Christians can pray in public school.
The teachers cannot lead the prayer.
There’s a difference.
You’re right. But the Left, especially the ACLU, despises Christians and love to poke them in the eye every chance they get.
Glenn Beck has one of these commie ACLU guys on his show last night. Mike Gallagher was on the other side and make this commie guy look pretty stupid in regards to supporting the Fairness Doctrine. The commie guy said it had nothing to do with changing programming but it would allow the government to decide who got licenses. This guy was so full of bull stuff it was unbelievable. But then again so is the whole ACLU.
Actually, Christian Scriptures exhort the believer to "pray without ceasing." And while there is obviously more stringent requirements for the practice of Islamic prayers than Christian prayers, at what point does the school draw the line in the assimilation/accomodation tension? Do the Muslims need classes which are gender separated?
Once you allow for (and encourage) non-Western cultural and religious differences in education (because that is what this is about), there is no stopping point. Every new group represented simply becomes another constituency to be placated and catered to. And that's because "multi-culturalism" has been accepted as an unquestioned benefit to society. Though no one's sure why. It does sound like the nice thing to do.
I’m tired of the Muslims with all their crap.
What they convieniently forget is that the religion of hate, destruction and discrimination also makes allowances for adjusting the prayer time to fit circumstances.
An establishment of religion is quite alright with the elite Left rulers in government...as long as that religion is not Christianity.
So who leads the Muslim kids in prayer?
Also, in my experience children do not participate in the five-times-per-day prayer schedule. It's intended for adults. And many, many adult Muslims never do it, either. It involves getting up before dawn, for one thing.
We're wimpy pacifists. We roll over.
Muslims are warriors. They raise their offspring with bomb belts and bandoliers. We raise ours in bistros and effeminize them by taking away dodge ball and any scoring during soccer games, because to keep score might hurt the kids' emotional development. Guess which kid, at age 18, will have a set of b@11s?
Sauron
Muslim prayers my A$$
The ACLU has already sued and won in the separation of church and state. I guess they surrendered to the mOSQUES. (I deliberetely capped and uncapped the CAPS key)
Why would a Christian name himself Sauron ...?
And 'Avalon Hill Hexagonal games'...
Can you say Panzer Leader?
Cheers!
They are building their army of criminal serfs and psychos who won’t mind doing their bidding .
I already knew we were history when they got in our streets flying the Mexican and Islamic flags and millions of americans didn’t meet them in the streets . Add insult to injury, this is when our troops were dying at war with one of these groups . America was it, we have no place else to go or run to .
Reagan was a pig with a high spending astrology pagan for a wife who gave millions of illegals amnesty.Ye some still praise the him .
I’m just glad I’m old ! And I have enough sense to save a couple extra bullets for myself in case of capture by one of the headhunters .
It seems we don’t get it , do you know what they do to people ? You know what they did to our first 3 soldiers they caught last year ,they started by cutting off their fingers, hands stabbed out their eyes, castrated them and fed them their private parts , burned them, cut off limbs then finally slowly sawed off their heads! They kept them alive with drugs and slowed the blood so they could torture them longer . This is what we are fighting with phone calls, emails and fax's .Same thing to these others they just got their demon hands on , but you have to dig hard to find this news . We need to call all together and get into the capitals,the streets and the county commish meetings . Don't let any more radical cultist or pervert push our kids out of schools or teach them any more filth . Help the Minutemen and go to the borders on vacation , don't just stand behind the lines and cheer . Our enemies smell our weakness and get braver .
There is no separation of Church and State either. It's the ACLU's biggest myth ever purported upon this nation. This is a Judeo-Christian nation. Attention all muzzies, when in Rome.... No one dare even bring a Bible into a muzzie country. All confirmed Christians are killed in muzzie countries. Why do we allow the ACLU to spread their filth?
I wonder if at any time in history, a civilization has been more accommodating to the enemy than all of Western Civilization is today to radical Islam.
I have to agree with you about the soccer comment (sports in general) but you killed with the set of balls thing.
The kids raised Muslim (and we’re seeing it now) don’t have balls, if we’re basing it on those who hate and blow up themselves and innocent people in the process. Muslims aren’t warriors. They’re cowards who believe in a *religion* that’s a death cult with a perverted prophet, which thrives on hatred and violence.
So the Muslim kid, at 18, won’t have a set of balls. At least not the kind that matter. That kid will probably grow up, has grown up, to be the fanatic loon we’re seeing now. Unless the phrase *set of balls* has changed when I wasn’t looking, I wouldn’t attribute it to any Muslim male.
If Christians are not allowed to pray, the Muslims should not be allowed to pray.
I would love to have them let the Meslims pray..............then we could put God back in the schools!
I don’t think any accomodations should be given for the Muslims. Christians/Jews don’t get any accomodations.
There is, of course, a way to end this nonsense. And that is to shut down immigration from the Middle East outside of Israel. Perhaps Lebanon, at least to the Maronites.
It makes no sense to me whatsoever why we tolerate this nonsense. Why allow those so prone to terrorism and disdain for Western culture into our nation when we have plenty who would willingly come here from Eastern Europe?
There you have a skilled people who generally speak English. Many university educated. A common background. Wonderful civilizations slowed by communism.
Really, that one society should be seen as superior to the other is without question in my eyes.
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