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Jhud -> TIZA, an American Public Muslim school (4/9/2008 11:35:39 AM)
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Interesting article in today's Minneapolis Startribune regarding the running of Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), a K-8 charter school in Minnesota.
Charter schools are public schools that tend to be focused on a a particular theme or mission. They are publicly funded, and run under most of the rules of operation that public schools do.
In the case of TIZA, it seems to be running a specifically religious school under the guise of a charter school. Katherine Kersten, the reporter who wrote the article, details the following:
TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is "establishing Islam in Minnesota." The building also houses a mosque. TIZA's executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.
Students pray daily, the cafeteria serves halal food - permissible under Islamic law -- and "Islamic Studies" is offered at the end of the school day.
Zaman maintains that TIZA is not a religious school. He declined, however, to allow me to visit the school to see for myself, "due to the hectic schedule for statewide testing." But after I e-mailed him that the Minnesota Department of Education had told me that testing would not begin for several weeks, Zaman did not respond -- even to urgent calls and e-mails seeking comment before my first column on TIZA.
She further writes about the experiences of a substitute at that school:
Arriving on a Friday, the Muslim holy day, she [the substitute] says she was told that the day's schedule included a "school assembly" in the gym after lunch.
Before the assembly, she says she was told, her duties would include taking her fifth-grade students to the bathroom, four at a time, to perform "their ritual washing."
Afterward, Getz said, "teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day," was preparing to lead prayer. Beside him, another man "was prostrating himself in prayer on a carpet as the students entered."
"The prayer I saw was not voluntary," Getz said. "The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to the assembly where prayer occurred."
I think it's rather obvious that if this were a charter school promoting Christian religious activities, the ACLU and the state of Minnesota would close it so fast that it would never have appeared to have been open. But officials seem to have been rather indifferent to the running of TIZA.
And why is this? I think it really comes down to the liberal/politically correct mindset. In the liberal mind Christianity represents repression, authoritarianism, narrow mindedness, and the like. It is the enemy to be fought.
On the other hand, other religions expand our horizons, challenge the hegemony of western culture and values, and represent the voice of the minority. It is good to encourage their activity and freedom.
And as a result, different rules are applied; we can expect, that Minnesota, a very liberal state, will continue to tolerate TIZA just as it is.
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