A U.S. school that allowed Muslim students to interrupt classes to “convert” students to Islam now faces a grilling from a constitutional legal team.
As part of its Project for Constitutional Rights in Education, the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund monitors school districts to ensure that officials are educated about the “threat of Islamic indoctrination and religiously preferential ‘anti-Islamophobia’ bullying programs.”
FCDF said it sent the West New York School District in New Jersey a public records request to see documents “that could show whether the district is unlawfully promoting religion.”
The concern centered on a decision to hang a large banner at the school “beseeching ‘Allah’ to ‘shower’ students with ‘love and wisdom.’”
FCDF said it also is seeking documents related to two Muslim students who were given permission to interrupt classes during the school day to convert students to Islam “under the guise of teaching them about Ramadan,” the group said.
It was the same school that drew a “cease and desist” letter from FCDF only a few weeks ago regarding the banner.
“The district removed the poster but left intact massive bulletin boards designed by Muslim students to teach students about Ramadan,” the organization said.
The school bulletin boards send students to a website run by the North Hudson Islamic Educational Center’s “Dawah Committee,” which explains its mission is to convert public school students to Islam.
On the website, the committee praised the two Muslim students involved “for their outstanding dawah educational awareness in the public schools. We pray that other students and parents will follow suit in the near future. May Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala reward them manifold.”
“When public school districts enact policies or otherwise expose students to religious indoctrination, they choose to place ‘diversity’ and ‘cultural awareness’ over the First Amendment,” said FCDF Executive Director Daniel Piedra.
“FCDF will not tolerate this intentional effort to propagandize to schoolchildren. We will continue to warn all school districts to reconsider any policy or action that tramples on our children’s constitutional rights.”
WND recently reported two school districts in Washington state instructed teachers to greet students in Arabic and work with Muslim students to give “a lesson” on Ramadan and provide special accommodations for them.
At least one district already has backed away from its plans at the urging of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, which is reminding public schools they are not Islamic madrassas.
The Northshore School District in Bothell withdrew an Islam promotion.
It had directed teachers to create “safe spaces” for Muslims, plan with Muslim students to let them “quietly slip away” from class for prayer, “privately offer information” about nutrition during their Ramadan fast, give “a lesson” on Ramadan and privately ask Muslim students what accommodations they want.
WND reported last month FCDF sent a similar letter to the Dieringer School District in Lake Tapps, Washington, about the issue.
