During the history course at Excelsior School in the fall of 2001, the teacher, using an instructional guide, told the students they would adopt roles as Muslims for three weeks to help them learn what Muslims believe.Isn't White correct? If he is, should we think that the school is more respectful of Islam or more respectful of Christianity? One might contend that the school is more hostile to the religion it would never make the students pretend to exercise, because of the exclusion, but I think the opposite is true. The role-playing seems acceptable to the teachers when they conceive of the religion as a manifestation of a culture and not really a religion at all. If you wouldn't do an exercise like this for all the religions, you shouldn't do it for any of them. Asking children to say prayers that they do not believe could be very offensive to those who actually believe the religion. And finding out that the school made your child recite prayers other than yours is infuriating.
She encouraged them to use Muslim names, recited prayers in class and made them give up something for a day, such as television or candy, to simulate fasting during Ramadan. The final exam asked students for a critique of elements of Muslim culture.
U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled in favor of the school district in 2003, saying that the class had an instructional purpose and that students had engaged in no actual religious exercises.
The appeals court upheld her ruling Thursday in a three-paragraph decision that was not published as a precedent for future cases...
Edward White of the Thomas More Center, the attorney in the case for the two children and their parents, said he will ask the full appeals court for a rehearing. He said the panel failed to address his argument that the district violated parents' rights.
"What happened in this classroom was clearly an endorsement of religion and indoctrination of children in the Islamic religion, which would never have stood if it were a class on Christianity or Judaism,'' White said.
November 19, 2005
Is a role-playing lesson about Islam, complete with prayers, permitted in public schools?
The Ninth Circuit rejected the Establishment Clause claim:
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Apologies to Orwell
Some religions are more equal than others.
(the ninth circuit rejecting a chance to invoke the establishment clause? Must be bizarro world, or involve Islam)
Interesting case. It's hardly off-base to agree that if this were a Christian or Jewish roleplay, that the situation would be totally different. There's more truth to the existence of a double-standard then there ought to be.
I wonder though, could this fall under purely educational purposes (a la comparative religion)? Of course, this would have to apply across the board. Teaching the Bible as literature is legal, but there's still so much heat attached to allowing religious themes in the classroom (particularly Judeo-Christian ones).
I can certainly under as a Christian, how people could feel excluded, or imposed upon. It's got to be fair all the way through. If you can't pray openly in the name Jesus in class, then is fair to let them pray in the name of Allah, even if they're pretenfing?
"If you wouldn't do an exercise like this for all the religions, you shouldn't do it for any of them."
Amen!
I wonder what kind of grade the kids would get if they talked about the role of women in Islamic societies? And are they going to study Christmas carols in December as part of the study of that other religion?
The line between culture and religion is often blurry. In some cultures, the line hardly exists at all. Thus one can't teach about some cultures without also teaching about religion.
I think it was a mistake to use prayers in the lesson plans, but I hardly see that this constituted an endorsement of religion.
Big question: were the prayers recited in English or in Arabic? The article doesn't seem indicate. I'm assuming that the recitations were in Arabic, as my brief intro to Islam included learning to say some Arabic phrases. If the recitations were in English, I'm more skeptical of the school's position.
I agree with White's assertion that this would not have stood had the school been making the students recite Christian prayers.
I assume that the teacher would have immediately understood that reciting Christian prayers in school was wrong. This does not signal hostility toward one religion or the other, however. It suggests that the Muslim prayers were regarded differently than Christian prayers. In this case, I think the Muslim prayers were being treated as curiousities or artifacts of another culture.
I'm having a hard time seeing this as a matter of respecting one religion more than the other. It seems to indicate that one religion (Islam in this case) is regarded as so foreign as not to impinge on first amendment issues.
By following Jack's logic, since Christianity is the dominant religious and cultural influence in the United States then schools should include unapologitically Christian values into their cirriculum.
It would simply be a reflection of the way things are, and to excise all mentions of Christianity and Christian values would be to create an unnatural hothouse where children are being informed without being enlightened.
From Jack's tone I would guess that he wouldn't make that argument.
I am a heathen, I am not baptized, but I do know Christianity as an outsider and I don't find the open celebration of the Christian community, even in public venues to be offensive.
This ruling by the ninth doesn't make sense in light of their ruling on the pledge of allegiance unless you assume that they are of the view that some religions are more equal than others.
Few would have a problem with an open display of religiousity in public schools if that display was allowed to go both ways.
Invite Allah, Jesus, Buddha, Vishnu and all the rest into the classroom. Kids are smarter than you think, parents should be and are the biggest influence on their children and all demonstrations of faith or values shouldn't be construed as automatically violating the establishment clause.
Jack: I certainly think they should teach about other religions and other cultures. I just have a problem with engaging in religious behavior, especially saying prayers. I think what was done here is not respectful to Islam, though it means to be.
Role-playing can be a legitimate teaching method, but they ought to test out the technique by picturing doing it with all the religions. Would they play Scientology?
"In this case, I think the Muslim prayers were being treated as curiousities or artifacts of another culture."
Exactly. Native American religions get similar patronizing attention.
I do have a problem with the prayers. I think that those who are fairly devout could find offense with their kids having to pray to another version of God.
I think that it is because some secularists don't understand the place of prayer in some people's religion. Obviously, it is a big part of Islam, but is also a big part of other religions too. If they had to pray in Arabic Moslem prayers, I think you have serious forced speech and forced religion problems.
But if the school allowed the kids to pray however they wanted, I don't think there is nearly as much a problem.
No, Jack, we are not to remain insular, but the so-called violations of the establishment clause have caused us to repress any artifact of our Judeo-Christian heritage, even to the point of calling Christmas break, Winter Break.
Why are we then violating the establishment clause to introduce Islam to children in an ahistorical fashion, requiring them to not merely study but to ACT as Muslims?
Miklos, Melchizedek and Anne, there's several really major problems here that a little net research shows.
First, the materials used were not 'comparitive' or 'interesting review of culture' type, they are immersive representation of a cultural truth, presenting all belief's and situations as truth as presented by the Islamic perspective. (As a side note, the organization creating them is funded by the Saudi Wahabi's.) The teaching may have been from that perspective, I haven't found anything that says either way, but the materials were not.
Second, courts don't try to decide the holiness or secularity of religious practices or objects, such as the classic city hall xmas manger display problem, rather they refer to the religious leaders of the particular religion to make that determination. Is a xmas tree holy? Is a creche scene holy? Is a menorah holy, etc? In most religious there are some less religious prayers and more religious ones, such as very clear statements of faith and belief and alligience to the deity or prophet or whatever.
There is a very small prayer in Islam that is considered to be the primary belief prayer, and recitation of it in public is considered an act of acceptance of the deity, prophet and religion. Instant conversion if you will.
Guess what was one of the 'sample' practice prayers? You want an Establishment Clause problem? In practice, the school district just converted the student body to Islam. The textbook materials are specifically set up for this.
Now that doesn't practically mean anything to your average secular American, but it certainly is a big deal to those religious Americans as well as the Islamic community. Technically, by the laws of the Islamic countries, if such a student was known to have done this and travelled there with their parents on vacation, the government would legally remove the (accidental?) Islamic convert from the parents to be raised by a proper Islamic family.
I find this deeply troubling, both the specifics of the situation and the ruling itself--perhaps because I can see so MANY different sides.
There is probably no issue on which I'm more deeply moderate than that of religion (once you step outside the realm of personal and privately held belief). I find that this makes analysis of where we currently find ourselves MORE difficult, rather than less--which is not usually the case with me: the more moderate I am, the EASIER it usually is.
So, my thought-trail here may seem a bit "early stage" and unfinished here.
First, whether rightly or wrongly, the fact that we're talking about middle-schoolers and not high-schoolers makes a difference to me. That's just a gut reaction.
Second, assuming that this was for instructional purposes only--in an instructional and comparative culture and religion sort of way-- it strikes me that it is based on the assumption that the kids did not know anything about Islam or how and why Muslims live out their faith. Which may very well--probably is, especially at that grade level (7th, in case anyway didn't get to the link)--true.
But to then not go on and teach Judaism and how and why Jews live out their beliefs, or Christianity and how and why Christians live out their beliefs implies to ME, at least, that there's an assumption that these kids DO know these things.
Well, think about that assumption, for a moment.
Is it valid?
Despite all the religious rhetoric in politics these days, despite all the court cases on issues big and small, despite the ID flap, despite it ALL:
This is largely a secular society, and more people take their cues from culture that is not explicitly religious (I mean that as a neutral statement).
More people stay away from church than not. (Yes, I know the polls on belief in God and even in the origins of man. But that's not the point.) More people than not turn to their own consciences rather than to any prescriptive, or proscriptive for that matter, religious precepts (again, I mean that as a neutral statement).
More people than not find regular, traditional knowledge of practice and religion irrelevant--and I mean that to be inclusive of the "Big 3 Traditions" and beyond. And I believe that if you take our population as a whole, relatively few people
actually have any real, useful knowledge--cultural, instructional and historical knowledge--of the so-called major religions, much less how people practice them.
Heck, even people (the full-grown ones) WITHIN certain faith traditions often don't know very much about how others within their broader "Religion" live out their faith. Some protestants don't understand what "Lent" is. Other Christians don't know understand the background of the "infant sprinkle" vs. "older full-immersion" disagreement. I'm sure there are analogies in the other religions as well.
And today's 7th-graders? Raised in this society? What should we assume about them?
I think we should find it disturbing--quite apart from the other issues, which are so profoundly NOT beside the point--that our education establishment, and even our judges, are apparently thinking SO small with regard to the larger context.
Does nobody step back and question assumptions anymore?
If one truly does, I find it hard to see any way in which one can justify teaching just one religion "instructionally," however it's done, but not others.
Seems to me it has to be all or none.
And no forced prayers, period ...
Perhaps the judge's ruling is an admission by her that we live in a Christian nation, something I am she she would care not to admit.
I wonder if the 9th Ciruit Court would have accepted the resoning of a roleplay of the Passover Seder or Christian Communion (or even the Lord's Prayer)?
And it also ironic that the opt-out option figured so prominently as a justification for letting the exercise stand when they were so dissmissive of the opt-out in the pledge case.
Tristram: The opt out is important because, without it, it would be blatantly unconstitutional. The law there is really clear. With the opt out, it's a harder question, but it's certainly not the end of the Establishment Clause inquiry.
Brylin: It's important to note that most federal court of appeals cases don't go to the Supreme Court, which decides only about 80 cases a year, from all the federal and state courts. The Supreme Court chooses what to review, and the tendency to reverse the cases it chooses isn't much of an indication of how out-of-line the the circuit generally is. Keep in mind too, that the 9th Circuit is by far the largest circuit, so there are just more 9th Circuit cases from which to choose the select few that are going to get to the Supreme Court. So the statistics you cite aren't as meaningful as you might be thinking.
Ann is not quite right when she says that defenders of this program see Islam as a culture, not a religion. I think that both the public school teachers and the 9th circuit judges see Islam as a political statement of opposition to "the West." This point if view is common on the left these days, where it is pretty much mainstream to believe that wearing short skirts to offend Muslims is a war crime, but doing it to offend Catholics is cute and subversive, or that urinating on the Koran is a human rights violation, but urinating on a crucifix is art.
I know Ann will be upset with me, because despite my J.D. degree, I do not believe that there is thing called "law," different from "politics," and that the 9th circuit does the former. So it doesn't seem productive to me to analyze establishment clause doctrine, at least not if your goal is to predict how the 9th circuit will be deciding cases.
Wow!
Looks like the 9th circuit just gave much of the South the judicial precedence for supporting Christian school prayers.
"See, judge, we're just acting it out. For educational purposes, of course."
No wonder our kids can't perform simple arithmetic; we're wasting valuable class time on useless touchy-feely thematic crap.
Related post:
Now That Schools Can Teach Islam, They Can Teach Christianity Too
Link:
http://ginacobb.typepad.com
BTW Michelle Malkin has the original class assignment up.
I certainly am not in favor of introducing religion to school.
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