Officials are investigating a bizarre incident at Terre Haute’s Dixie Bee Elementary on February 8 in which Mohammed Alharbi and his three daughters, all students there, distributed religious messages while school was in session. Going room to room, they gave each instructor a flower and a card stating that “Mohammed is a Prophet of Mercy” and advising: “Do not defame people lest you make them your enemies.” Reasoning that this should be considered a history lesson, not proselytizing (da’wa), administrators permitted the father to bring the material to the main office after the school’s legal counsel cautioned against “viewpoint discrimination.” They argue that Alharbi broke an agreement not to go beyond the office, but nobody can explain how he ended up walking freely through the halls. Alharbi insists that the principal had approved his plans.
Pro-Islam views have been creeping into secular U.S. classrooms, most often via slanted books, troubling guest speakers, and Islamist-run charter schools, even though any adult’s participation in religious endorsement at a public institution is legally problematic. The ease with which Alharbi reportedly gained access to teachers and students, despite a parent’s claim of airtight security, also recalls a recent case in which staffers’ ignoring of protocols enabled a niqab-clad woman to abduct a girl from a Philadelphia school; both events suggest PC-driven reluctance to say no to Muslims. Would a Christian with cards about Jesus have gotten as far at Dixie Bee?
