Education Matters US

SUMMARY: Pro-family attorneys say ruling would have been different if it was about Christianity.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is at it again. A three-judge panel has rejected a lawsuit brought by two California students and their parents, who challenged the way a northern California school district taught about Islam.

The decision was not “published,” meaning it will not serve as precedent, although it certainly gives insight into how the judges on the 9th Circuit are thinking.

The parents accused the Byron Union School District, in Byron, Calif., of unconstitutionally endorsing a religious practice, according to Edward White, a Thomas More Law Center attorney who represented the parents.

White said his clients did not object to their seventh graders learning about Islam — they objected to what amounted to indoctrination.

“The students were put in the position of being more like trainees of Islam, rather than students learning about a particular religion,” he said.

The materials handed to the children informed them that during the simulation they would “become Muslims.”

“The materials had, in bolded letters, statements such as, ‘Remember Allah always so that you may prosper,’ ” White said.

As part of the two-week instruction, the students took Islamic names, wrote those names on ID tags that carried a star and crescent and wore them around their necks.

“They memorized prayers and recited them in front of the teacher,” White said. “They made these banners which said, ‘In the name of God, the most gracious, most compassionate. Praise be to God,’ and put them on the walls of the classroom.”

Students also had to memorize parts of the Quran, and play a dice game called “The Jihad.”

“They also engaged in the Five Pillars of Faith,” White said, which included fasting during the month of Ramadan, “in which students were encouraged to give up candy; for extra credit they could give up a sandwich for lunch or TV.”

The tasks, he said, were presented directly — and not prefaced by saying, “Muslims believe thus and so.”

“The school district tried to say that the parents didn’t want Islam taught in the schools,” White said. “That’s not true. They had no opposition to the materials being taught.

“The classroom went from being a place where students learned about the religion to a place where students actually learned the religion,” White said, calling what went on “a catechism class in Islam.”

< False Impressions >

Steve Crampton, who heads the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy, called the 9th Circuit’s ruling a bad decision.

“Imagine, if you will, that the shoe was on the other foot, and instead of Muslim practices, these kids were required to participate in traditional Christian practices,” Crampton said. “What if, to get a good grade, a Muslim student was forced to put on a baptismal robe and wade into the school swimming pool to be baptized — ‘In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?’

“You would have seen an injunction entered in a New York minute.”

Interestingly, the 9th Circuit judges cited a case from a decade ago, in which parents objected to a curriculum which had their children engage in witchcraft and guided imagery.

That case, which dealt with the infamous “Impressions” series, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, also saw the parents’ rights overruled, according to Crampton, who represented the parents then.

“That particular case involved coerced exercises by the students in occult practices,” Crampton said. “Of course, the court basically rewrote the nature of the challenge in order to suit its preconceived outcome — namely, that what went on at that time was basically a harmless pedagogical exercise, and that somehow the Christian parents were seeking to impose their own religion on everyone else in the school. That wasn’t the case at all.”

In fact, the parents in the 1990s were looking for genuine religious freedom and tolerance of their views — just like now.

Crampton said the textbook in the Byron case — “Across the Centuries” — is also problematic, and he is pursuing a case with another parent in California who was shocked when she read the textbook in question.

Eric Buehrer, president of Gateways to Better Education, said “Across the Centuries” is both confusing and misleading.

“Frankly it miseducates students,” he said. “For instance, the textbook flat-out says that the God of Muhammed — Allah — is the same God worshipped by Christians and Jews. Now I don’t think any of the three religions — Christianity, Islam and Judaism — would agree with that statement, and yet that’s what’s being taught.”

White, meanwhile, said he plans to appeal the case to the judges of the entire 9th Circuit — and may go to the U.S. Supreme Court, if needed.

Peter Brandt, senior director of Government and Public Policy for Focus on the Family Action, said this decision is just another reason why the 9th Circuit — the most overturned judicial district in the country — needs to be scrapped and rebuilt.

“We’re aware of what the House did in voting to split apart the 9th Circuit, but it really doesn’t go far enough,” he said. “That would simply leave the same bad judges in place. Congress has the power to tear it down and start over. The time has come to explore that possibility.”

TAKE ACTION: Please contact your senators and ask them to support efforts to scrap the 9th Circuit and completely reorganize it. For help in contacting your lawmakers, please see the CitizenLink Action Center.

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