A Michigan school district recently announced plans to begin anew a Bible study activity that it’s shut down twice before due to legal threats by a “civil rights” consortium.
Superintendent Ken Haggart of the Fremont Public Schools (Michigan) said that “Bible Release Time” for interested Daisy Brook Elementary School students will start back up in the fall with further “adjustments.”
MLive.com reports the Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists (MACRA) was behind the previous complaints, the first being in 2015 which alleged “the [Bible] classes violated law banning organized religious activities on school grounds during school hours.”
The school had altered the program so that the classes were held during lunch time at a nearby church — with transportation provided by the church.
In keeping with the post-Murray v. Curlett legal world, Michigan “does not allow public schools to administer, create, organize or promote [a] class or any program that serves a religious purpose.” State law does permit, however, “two hours a week of ‘released time Bible study’ during school hours as long as it’s off campus and only provided to students who have parental permission.”
Even so, Superintendent Haggart reports MACRA sent in a formal complaint two weeks ago about the new — and seemingly legally permissible — accommodation, so again he shut down confab … if just for the time being.
“We temporarily canceled the program while we reviewed parts of the program,” Haggart said. “We believe that we were doing nothing wrong.”
MORE: High school sets aside rooms for Muslim students to pray in during Ramadan
Haggart said new modifications to the study will include “making sure the flier that advertises the program is correct in addition to changing how the flier is distributed.”
EAGNews.org notes MACRA has challenged other districts in the state “which […] quickly folded to [their] claims.”
Flashback last week to New York State’s Shenendehowa High School: There, rooms in the school have been set aside for Muslim students to pray in during Ramadan:
“Prayer occurs on a daily basis for practicing Muslims. This can be challenging in today’s modern public high school. In an attempt to make reasonable accommodations for students and employees to meet their personal religious obligations, room 65 in High School West and room 109 in High School East have been set aside so students can incorporate this important aspect of their religion into their daily activities while at school.”
A local news station’s legal analyst appeared to not fully grasp what is meant by schools being required to make their “facilities available to all groups including religious groups.” As I noted, this does not mean during normal school operating hours. A pastor could not come into the building, for example, and deliver a sermon in a teacher’s (vacant-due-to-planning time) classroom to students who’ve been excused from math class.
Indeed, during Ramadan 13 years ago in my home state of Delaware, the most populous school district had faced complaints from Muslim parents that prayer accommodations were not being provided in the school.
After initial refusals for accommodations, the Christina School District ended up backing down and agreed to a provide room in which to pray, much as Shenendehowa HS did.
A day after Muslim students at Bancroft Intermediate School were told they could not pray in school and had to sit in the cafeteria at lunch despite fasting in observance of Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, one child was allowed Friday to go to a private room to pray.
Shaida Fennell said that her son, Hashim, 12, was escorted by a teacher to a private room twice during the day so he could pray. He also was not forced to remain in the lunchroom with other students, she said.
The normally quite progressive D.O. put out an editorial a few days later condemning Christina’s decision. At the time, yours truly had emailed D.O. writer Michael Billington (author of the story’s articles) asking if he had contacted the local American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) about the district’s decision. He never replied.
Which begs the question: Where are groups like the ACLU and MACRA when it comes to cases like those at Shenendehowa and Christina?
MORE: ACLU tells schools to stop prayer before football games
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