Islam in Public Schools

The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear a case involving the indoctrination of public school children into Islam. The decision came on the First Monday of October, the opening day of the 2006 Supreme Court term.

Not surprisingly, the controversial case comes from a ruling made by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. But what is surprising, is that hardly anyone has heard of the legal battle.

The lawsuit stems from a state mandated course in California public schools that requires seventh grade students to learn about Islam, the teachings of Muhammad, as well as studying scriptures from the Quran.

Though the course is mandated, the Californian Department of Education allows teachers to exercise their own discretion on how the course on Islam is to be taught.

This discretion encouraged one teacher in the Bryon Union School District to adopt a supplementary “Student Guide” that specifically states:

“From the beginning, you and your classmates will become Muslims.”

One would think this statement alone would render the course unconstitutional. Yet the class went further in its brazen efforts to condition children into Islam.

According to the Thomas More Law Center, a public interest law firm which sued the school district on behalf of Jonas and Tiffany Eklund and their two minor children, the course also had children:

· Recite aloud Muslim prayers that begin with “In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful…”

· Memorize the Muslim profession of faith: “Allah is the only true God and Muhammad is his messenger.”

· Chant “Praise be to Allah” in response to teacher prompts.

· Profess as “true” the Muslim belief that “The Holy Quran is God’s word.”

· Give up candy and TV to demonstrate the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

· Take an Arabic name from a list of 30.

· Play a board game called a “Race to Mekkah”.

· Wear an emblem of the Muslim star and crescent moon around their necks.

Essentially, the course had students “become Muslims for three weeks,” the Eklund attorneys argued in their petition to the Supreme Court to hear the case.

Children were also asked to analyze, explain and recite this jihadist scripture:

“Believers, why is it that when it is said to you: ‘March in the cause of Allah,’ you linger slothfully in the land? … If you do not fight, He will punish you sternly and replace you with other men.”

Students were even asked to read this scripture:

“Those who avenge themselves when wronged incur no guilt.”

Regardless of the constitutionality of the case, should 12-year-old students ever be taught that Allah wants them to “march” and “fight” in his name, and to “avenge themselves when wronged”? The stories of two Californians, John Walker Lindh (“The American Taliban”) and Adam Yahiye Gadahn (“Azzam the American”), should serve as examples of the powerful impact these Islamic scriptures have on impressionable children.

Yet despite the dubious constitutionality of the case, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that declared the Islamic class did not violate the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Judge Phyllis Hamilton, who was appointed under President Bill Clinton, presided over the lower federal court case and issued a 22-page ruling stating the children were only “role-playing” and “simulating” the Five Pillars of the Islamic Faith.

For example, a true Muslim must pray five times a day, not just once a day as students were asked in this class; a true Muslim must fast for a month, not just give up candy or TV for a week; and a true Muslim must make an actual trip to Mecca if affordable, not just play a board game.

In the end, Judge Hamilton concluded, students were merely being asked to engage in “fantasy activities” and were never coerced into becoming Muslims because they never completed the Five Pillars of Islamic Faith.

Conveniently, however, Judge Hamilton never mentioned the quote in the supplementary “Student Guide” that specifically states: “From the beginning, you and your classmates will become Muslims.” Furthermore, Judge Hamilton ignored the fact that the teacher kept a “log” of whether the children were completing the “Islamic Five Pillars of Faith.”

Indeed, the “Student Guide” itself states students “must complete the Muslim’s Five Pillars of Faith.”

“Role-playing” or “fantasy activities” set aside, one wonders what the federal courts in California would have ruled had the roles been reversed. What if Muslim students were asked to adopt a Christian name; or chant “Praise be to Christ” at teacher prompts; or wear a Christian “fish” symbol during school hours; or profess as true the “Holy Bible is God’s Word;” or be asked to recite the “Lord’s Prayer”?

No doubt, the class would have been struck-down as a violation of the First Amendment.

There would also be no doubt, had the roles been reversed, the ACLU and Muslim groups would be issuing doomsday press releases; newspapers and evening news programs would be blaring and printing screaming headlines; and the Halls of Congress would be in an uproar.

In the Jonas Eklund v. Byron Union School District case, however, deafening silence rules the day. There’s hardly a peep. When I visited Congress in August, I went door-to-door visiting dozens of staff members. What I found was not surprising: Not a single congressional office, including the House Judiciary Committee, was even familiar with the case.

But what can Congress do? First, it should pass a congressional resolution condemning the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to uphold the constitutionality of this Islamic indoctrination program. Second, Congress should demand public hearings to determine the entire extent of Islamic teaching programs in California public schools. Third, Congress should cut off all tax-payer funds to public schools that indoctrinate children into Islam.

Now that the Supreme Court has refused to hear the Eklund case, California public schools are free to have children “role-play” and engage in “fantasy activities” that essentially require them to become Muslims, as the Student Guide boldly declares.

In effect, the Supreme Court has upheld the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that says it’s perfectly constitutional to have children, among other things, profess as “true” the “Holy Quran is God’s Word.” Such a ruling allows any public schools west of Arizona in the south and Montana in the north to implement this Islamic indoctrination program.

In fact, a public school in Nyssa, Oregon is now requiring seventh-grade students to dress-up as Muslims as part of a four-week course on Islam. A parent objected to the class, but to no avail. If the roles were reversed, would school officials have reacted differently if a Muslim parent complained that their child was being required to dress up as the Pope? I think so.

It is a bit of irony that the 9th Circuit Appeals Court is the same court that ruled it was unconstitutional for public school students to recite the word “God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Perhaps if the Pledge of Allegiance had children recite, “one nation under Allah,” the 9th Circuit would have ruled differently.

Martin Mawyer, president
Christian Action Network