Abstract

Excerpted From: Harold Hinds, Free to Learn: Protecting Muslim Students in Public Schools, Case Precedent and Social Theory in the Fight to Protect Their Rights, 27 Richmond Public Interest Law Review 1 (July 8, 2024) (206 Footnotes) (Full Document)

Though family, neighborhood, and friends all play a substantive role in a child's development, school attendance is another important vehicle for the growth of young people in America. Discussing the importance of education in the landmark school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, then Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Earl Warren, asserted that compulsory education “is the very foundation of good citizenship [and that] it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values ... and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment.” In Brown, the Supreme Court maintained that it is through school, more than any other institution, that children learn what it means to be American. At school, children learn which habits, perspectives, and practices should be admired and emulated, and which should be admonished and reprimanded. Children's interactions with their peers and teachers also teach students how to interact with others, fostering either a sense of tolerance or a tendency towards bigotry in young people. Because of this, schools can either do tremendous good in the lives of the children and young adults who attend them, or cause serious harm to their development and self-image.

Generally, when a student's culture, identity, and ideals align with her community's mainstream beliefs, she finds school a safe space to learn and grow. But when her culture, identity, or ideals conflict with what is considered to be the norm, she is often met with hostility and bigotry. All too often, students who are markedly different from their peers end up victimized by school policies that stifle their identity and rob them of their dignity. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and gender-nonconforming students, for example, often find themselves targets of virulent attacks from bigoted peers, teachers, and administrators who promote policies that harm rather than affirm these students. As was the case when the Court decided Brown, students of color still find themselves subjected to discriminatory treatment because of their race. Likewise, politically active students with views that contradict popular sensibilities of their communities have always encountered opposition from administrators and teachers who disagree with these students' political views.

Though different from sexual orientation, race, and political perspective, religion is an important issue affecting how many students interact with the American educational system. As America becomes a more diverse and cosmopolitan nation, our perceptions about what constitutes a “typical American student” must also change. Changing student demographics and the inherent challenges of learning to accept them become an increasingly complicated concern for students with religious views that differ from the mainstream Judeo-Christian customs observed by the general populous. students often find it especially hard to navigate the social and cultural landscape of the American public school system.

For example, when assessing public school holiday observance, virtually all public schools in this country provide accommodations for students celebrating traditional Christian holidays like Christmas, Easter, and Good Friday. However, very few provide meaningful accommodations for Muslim students. Eid al Fitr, Eid Adha, and Ashura are three of the most important holidays in the Muslim world. As of the date of this article, only a handful of school districts in a few states officially recognize any of these holidays. Additionally, though most American families think very little about things like uniforms, school dress codes, lunch menus, and sports schedules, these things can, and often do, act as barriers to many Muslim students effectively engaging with and in their schools.

Furthermore, post-9/11 sentiment in America has increased hostility and outright discrimination against Muslims in all areas of life, including schooling. For example, in 2010, Muslims in New York City had to deal with profound animus towards their efforts to build a community center in Manhattan. Several states, including Tennessee and Oklahoma, have outlawed the citing of Sharia law in court opinions, and high-profile political officials have openly stated that they would advocate requiring Muslim-American staff who worked with them as court staff and administrators to take “loyalty oaths” to ensure that they had no intention to subvert American interests. 2017 polling from the Pew Research Center found that within the first few months of the Trump administration, nearly half of Muslim American adults reported being subjected to hostile treatment because of their faith.

Additional studies have also shown that in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, many Americans became increasingly suspicious and uncomfortable with Muslim Americans. Since then, many Americans have developed a more skeptical view of Islam generally and Muslim Americans specifically. In 2005, forty-one percent of Americans had “favorable” opinions of Islam. In 2010, that number had dropped to thirty percent. Simultaneously, the percentage of Americans with unfavorable views about Muslims rose from thirty-six to thirty-eight percent. Forty percent of Americans surveyed in 2011 stated that they believed Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence towards those of other faiths, an alarming increase from the twenty-five percent of Americans who shared that view in 2002. In recent years, corresponding with the advent of Donald Trump's presidency, negative views of Muslim-Americans and Islam have only gotten worse. In a 2019 survey asking Americans how warm or cool their sentiments were towards different religious groups, survey participants felt less warm about Muslims than any other religious group, including atheists. Only twenty-two percent of respondents had warm feelings towards Muslims.

Regarding schooling, many public school districts have seen increased levels of violence and threats of violence directed toward Muslim students. Substantive research also suggests that many Muslim students feel stigmatized because of their beliefs, feel pressured to conform to the general customs of their fellow students, and often take active strides to hide their faith. In 2021, the Council on American-Islamic Relations California Chapter (CAIR-CA) issued a report documenting the experiences of Muslim students in public schools. The report concluded that, among other things, fifty-five percent of Muslim students in California felt “unsafe, unwelcome or uncomfortable” at school because of their faith.

In addition to enduring ill-treatment at the hands of their peers, some schools enact policies that curtail the rights of Muslim students and actively discriminate against them because of their faith. In Neal v. Edison School District, for example, a non-Muslim teacher filed suit against the district on behalf of his Muslim students, alleging that the district had engaged in systemic discrimination against his students and subjected students to cruel and embarrassing treatment as a way of persecuting them because of their faith.

During Ramadan, Muslim children were required to go through the lunch line and remain in the lunch room, even though they were fasting during the day as a religious obligation. Such overt discrimination and harassment had a powerful impact ... on the children directly involved since it communicated to him the message that those of other faiths were “second-class.”

Though the actions of school officials in Neal were particularly outrageous, this discrimination against Muslim students is all too common in America. As stated earlier, current American perceptions of Muslim Americans are anything but positive and affirming. As general American sentiments about Muslim Americans have become more hostile, documented incidents of bigotry and harassment have also increased. For the six years preceding 2001, the average number of hate crimes against Muslim Americans reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was roughly 27.5 per year. In the aftermath of 9/11, for the six years following the attacks, the average jumped to just over 143 per year. Complaints of civil rights violations filed with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) increased noticeably from 366 between 2000 and 2001 to 525 between 2001-2002. Complaints continued to increase in subsequent years. From 2001 to 2008 the number of yearly complaints increased by 2,203. In Behind the Backlash, a book devoted to analyzing the experiences of Muslim Americans post-9/11, author Lori Peek cites the experience of a young Muslim American college student as the student combated bigotry from teachers and fellow students:

This guy in my class, he blurts out, “Muslim parents teach their children to become terrorists.” Another guy piles on and says, “Yeah, we should kill all the Muslim children now, because when they grow up, they're going to be terrorists. They're brainwashing the kids.” The sad thing is it is clear that I am Muslim. I am sitting in there and they know this is my faith, but they say it anyway.

In the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, Muslim advocacy groups have seen a major spike in hate crimes against Muslims in this country. In October 2023, the Council on American-Islamic Relations reported receiving 774 reports of bias incidents and requests for help from Muslims across the US. This was a 182% increase in reports and requests from the same time period the year prior. Schools have not been immune from the challenges facing the country at large. In November 2023, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights issued a press release directing schools to take active steps to protect Jewish and Muslim students from discrimination, harassment, and violence. Given the undercurrent of distrust and sometimes outright hostility directed towards Muslim Americans in this day and age, schools, as one of the most significant influences in the lives of children and young adults, need to ensure that Muslim students are protected in both their physical persons and ability to exercise their faith.

Every day, Muslim American students have to fight for their right to express their faith with dignity. The fact that this happens in a nation that purports to hold freedom of religion as a foundational tenant of its identity is abhorrent. Like everyone else in this country, Muslims have the right to exercise and be protected in exercising their faith in every facet of life, including while attending school. When implemented effectively, the rich body of Supreme Court case law that has developed over the years involving civil rights and religious liberties can provide substantive guidance for administrators looking to create policies to support Muslim students in public schools. These cases can also serve as a substantive check on administrators who discriminate against Muslim students and stifle their ability to practice their faith with honor and dignity.

[. . .]

Religion is an essential component of life for many Americans. The debate over the relationship between religion and this nation's legal system has always been important, often accompanied by intense conflict and social unrest. When we think about the fear and unrest many Americans have about Muslims, we can understand why schools might turn a blind eye to discrimination against them or try to hinder their ability to practice their faith openly and freely. Faced with public pressure and community unrest, schools and school districts might find it in their immediate interest to deny Muslim students the protections the Constitution affords.

While at first blush the challenges Muslim students face might appear novel, less than sixty years ago, this nation faced a not so dissimilar conflict involving race, as Black students were denied access to the same opportunities as their white counterparts. There too, schools were faced with conflicting public sentiments, and attempts to protect the constitutional rights of Black students were often met with obstinance and anger. In Brown, the Supreme Court made clear that public opposition to equal protection was no excuse for not taking action that would remedy the problems posed by segregation. “[I]t should go without saying that the vitality of these constitutional principles cannot be allowed to yield simply because of disagreement with them.”

As schools grapple with learning how to support Muslim students at a time when negative public sentiment makes that particularly challenging, schools can look to the constitutional principles that guided us through other divisive times in this country's history. Taking the lessons learned from cases like Brown, Keyishian, Lemon, Santa Fe, Good News Club, and the litany of cases they spawned that furthered the efforts to protect civil and religious liberties, schools can ensure that the rights of Muslim students and the opportunities they need to express their faith are protected.

Harold Hinds is an education-focused civil rights attorney by training, and a third-year PhD student at the New School's School of Policy, Management, and Environment.