Muslim Prayer in Public Schools
Are Public Schools Accommodating Islam Over Christianity?
For years, Christian prayer has been banned in public schools. Now, Muslims are demanding prayer time and getting it.
Public Schools And Prayer
In 2000, Congress passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. This act demanded many religious accommodations to be made on public property. In 1993, a federal court mandated a San Diego district to allow students to have religious activities during lunchtime.
In spite of this, we hear of teachers being fired for silently reading a personal Bible during a study hall. Students are not allowed to have student-led Christian prayer at graduations. Students from parochial schools are denied open gym time at the local public school in their district.
New Accommodations
There are pockets throughout the country that have concentrations of Muslim students.
- San Diego, CA
- Dearborn, MI
- Dallas, TX
- New York City, NY
These schools are giving the Islamic students breaks to pray during the school day. In fact, the complaint has been made that an extra recess was created in the San Diego district just for prayer.
How Much Prayer?
According to Akram Shami, from the Islamic Center of Southern California in Los Angeles, "We pray to God, we worship God, and we recite verses from the Koran. Prayer is typical at noon or 1 p.m. but there are five daily prayers." [Randy Dotinga, The Christian Science Monitor, scmonitor.com, July 12, 2007] Shami goes on to say that in some public schools, students leave classes momentarily or even wait to pray when they get home.
At Carver Elementary School in San Diego students are praying 15 minutes during an afternoon recess and an hour after lunch. Extra breaks were put into the school day this year to accommodate 100 Muslim students that transferred from a closed Arabic languge program.
No Child Left Behind
Because of the No Child Left Behind mandate, many schools are eliminating recesses to allow more time for reading and math. Even science is being pushed to the back burner to allow more time for teaching. Lengthening the schools day is being considered and all-year school is becoming popular to aid in student information retention. With all this being demanded in other schools, it is surprising that some public schools are adding a recess for religious prayer.
Christian Demands
Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute is asking the school district to provide rooms for Christians to pray, as well. "The school policy presumes that Christians are less religious and less inspired to worship and praise the Lord and come together," says Dacus." [Randy Dotinga, The Christian Science Monitor, scmonitor.com, July 12, 2007]
Court Involvement
Lisa Soronen, attorney with the National School Boards Association, says, "Most Americans don’t think about the fact that schools naturally accommodate Christians. There’s no school on Sunday, and we get days off for most of the major Christian holidays." Soronen added that the courts have not ruled on this issue so there is no precedent. Since the American Civil Liberties Union has remained silent on Muslim prayer, it may be up to Christian groups to take this matter to the courts. Meanwhile, schools are unclear how to handle the issue.
Read previous articles on Educational Issues.
Copyright article 2007 Barbara Pytel. All Rights Reserved.
