Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Last year there was a lot of controversy over goings on at a Muslim charter school in Minnesota and the anti-ACLU types gave their usual silly argument - "Why isn't the ACLU suing over this? They just hate Christianity and don't care about Islam." In fact, the ACLU had said then that they were investigating the situation, as was the state of Minnesota, even while the charter school was making some changes in response to complaints.
Now the ACLU has concluded that the changes were not enough to remain within the law and they have filed a federal establishment clause suit over it. You can view the complaint here (PDF). Some of the charges:
TIZA operations are problematic for a number of reasons including:* TIZA leases both of its campuses from religious groups;
* TIZA and the Muslim American Society of Minnesota (MAS-MN) and TIZA's landlords are linked by a complex, interconnecting set of personal and corporate relationships. The leadership and operations of TIZA and MAS-MN have always been overlapping and MAS-MN officials function in prominent leadership positions at TIZA.
* TIZA has been shown to advance, endorse and prefer the Muslim religion over other religions or nonsectarian approaches in connection with school activities.
This will be interesting to watch.
Politics
Comments
As reported at Minnesota Public Radio
I could see where this might impinge on a history class, but I don't see how math or science should be concerned with religion at all, either for or against. Toward what religious arguments are they being inclusive and tolerant and accepting?
Posted by: Herod the Freemason | January 26, 2009 9:38 AM
It would definitely be interesting to have parallel universes where you could have this case and another exact case where all references to Islam were changed to references of Christianity and then see whether the responses to the suit were the same in both instances or different and how they differed according to one's own religious beliefs.
Reading the complaint it seems pretty straightforward and pretty clearly a violation, especially if they're using public funds.
Posted by: Mark Boggs | January 26, 2009 9:38 AM
You know how when those nasty atheists criticize Christianity, and some Christians get a bad case of fatwa envy and wonder why Islam isn't being picked on instead?
As reported by the Minneapolis star-Tribune
Posted by: Herod the Freemason | January 26, 2009 9:41 AM
One sad part of this is that it was our local rightwing wingnut columnist Katherin Kirstin who originally brought this to everyone's attention.
Katherin was laid off from the Star Tribune a few weeks ago so I guess we will never get to hear how proud of the ACLU for bring this action (sarcasm).
Posted by: yoshi | January 26, 2009 10:48 AM
Well of *course* the ACLU took action -- they were SHAMED into it. I'm sure they will now proceed to bungle the case intentionally.
/moran
Posted by: xebecs | January 26, 2009 10:51 AM
Harold,
Of course the ACLU bitch-slaps her in response:
Sound like she's full of crap. If not, Rep. Greiling should publicize the schools and their crimes and let the ACLU sue them too. But it is probably easier just to claim the Muslims are being picked on by the ACLU.
Posted by: heddle | January 26, 2009 11:02 AM
They are only doing this to draw attention away from the fact that they hate Christians.
Posted by: Donalbain | January 26, 2009 11:20 AM
@Mark Boggs:
Actually that sounds like a pretty simple and neat experiment that a social scientist or maybe psychologist could set up. Have several groups who self-identify as one of several religions and a group of atheists/agnostics, have some of each group read and respond to one of the versions with either their or a different religion cited in the law suit.
Posted by: EricLR | January 26, 2009 5:57 PM
You know, I think this is kind of silly. If Christians can start a charter school, why can't Muslims? Both have the same freedom of religion. IOW, if you're going to allow "religious" charter schools at all, you might as well allow /bones, Buddhist ones, Hindu ones, etc. Whether they should be allowed is another question altogether. That is more properly what I think the ACLU should be investigating.
Anne G
Posted by: Anne | January 26, 2009 6:42 PM
If MAS is involved, then I have no doubts that shady dealings were afoot. I have worked for and with MAS personnel in different states for many years and the hallmark of these people, especially when schools are concerned, is secrecy and rule bending. The activities described in the complaint are all too familiar to me. For example, a MAS chairperson told me several years ago how he would obtain charter status for a school, and that Islamic studies would be an "after school option" just like TIZA.
The percentage of kids they claim are in poverty vs. 100% scoring at or above grade level is extremely interesting to me. In my child's MAS run secret society - I mean school, only four children out of 25 scored at or above grade level in his class. The majority of the children were the sons and daughters of wealthy doctors and other professionals. English proficiency was not the issue at hand, it was the sheer lack of professionalism and know-how that MAS exhibited in running a school. There is a lot of nepotism and croneyism, or at least there was in our MAS school. The school was a mess, but this was before MAS had any successes with registering as a 'charter school', and so it is a private school.
I bet the Muslims of Minnesota will be interested to hear that some of these guys were paying themselves upwards of $90 K.
I am so glad I came to my senses and put my children in good, solid public schools, where teachers speak English and actually teach, and where parents, community leaders, and the state have oversight into the activities and education of the kids.
Posted by: Ex-Muslim | January 26, 2009 11:20 PM
The issue is not the religion of the sponsors, its what they teach in class. Anyone can start a charter school, but no one can use it to proselytize. Proselytization (in printed materials) is what the ACLU is filing suit over. Another quibble: anyone can start a school AND proselytize, if they are willing to forego federal/state/local tax dollars. So the ACLU is really filing suit over proselytizing a religion with your tax dollars.
As Mark Boggs pointed out, what religion it is should be irrelevant, though it'd be interesting to know if the public agreed with that.
Posted by: eric | January 27, 2009 8:59 AM
There must be a Deep Cover Conservative® in the Minnestota ACLU who pushed this suit through committee
Posted by: rpsms | January 27, 2009 1:34 PM
Salaam
The demand for Muslim schools comes from parents who want their children a safe environment with an Islamic ethos.Parents see Muslim schools where children can develop their Islamic Identity where they won't feel stigmatised for being Muslims and they can feel confident about their faith.
Muslim schools are working to try to create a bridge between communities. There is a belief among ethnic minority parens that the British schooling does not adequatly address their cultural needs. Failing to meet this need could result in feeling resentment among a group who already feel excluded. Setting up Muslim school is a defensive response.
State schools with monolingual teachers are not capable to teach English to bilingual Muslim children. Bilingual teachers are needed to teach English to such children along with their mother tongue. According to a number of of studies, a child will not learn a second language if his first language is ignored.
Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. Muslims have the right to educate their children in an environment that suits their culture. This notion of "integration", actually means "assimilation", by which people generally really mean "be more like me". That is not multiculturalism. In Sydney, Muslims were refused to build a Muslim school, because of a protest by the residents. Yet a year later, permission was given for the building of a Catholic school and no protests from the residents. This clrearly shows the blatant hypocrisy, double standards and racism. Christians oppose Muslim schools in western countries yet build their own religious schools.
British schooling and the British society is the home of institutional racism. The result is that Muslim children are unable to develop
self-confidence and self-esteem, therefore, majority of them leave schools with low grades. Racism is deeply rooted in British society. Every native child is born with a gene or virus of racism, therefore, no law could change the attitudes of racism towards those who are different. It is not only the common man, even member of the royal family is involved in racism. The father of a Pakistani office cadet who was called a "Paki" by Prince Harry
has profoundly condemned his actions. He had felt proud when he met the Queen and the Prince of Wales at his son's passing out parade at Sandhurst in 2006 but now felt upset after learning about the Prince's comments. Queen Victoria invited an Imam from India to teach her Urdu language. He was highly respected by the Queen but other members of the royal family had no respect for him. He was forced to go back to India. His protrait is still in one of the royal places.
There are hundreds of state schools where Muslim pupils are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be designated as Muslim community schools with bilingual Muslim teachers. There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school.
Iftikhar Ahmad
www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk
Posted by: Iftikhar Ahmad | January 27, 2009 3:07 PM
But perhaps I shouldn't expect someone who has pasted his crazy screed to dozens of different sites.
Posted by: llewelly | January 28, 2009 8:13 AM
The last sentence of my previous post was intended to read:
But perhaps I shouldn't expect someone who has pasted his crazy screed to dozens of different sites to understand sarcasm.
Posted by: llewelly | January 28, 2009 8:16 AM
My son goes to a PUBLIC charter school. I couldn't care less if there are Muslim schools teaching Muslim relgious dogma as part of the curriculum and enforcing Muslim culturally influenced rules. However, charter schools are TAX PAYER FUNDED. They are NOT private. I'm completely sick of hearing him come home and tell me that he was scolded for this or that...petty, stupid things..things that would be laughable at a normal public high school. Muslims are using charter schools to get county funding to operate the school, but are treating it in every other way as a private religious institution. It's unconstitutional and illegal.
Posted by: Jason | April 15, 2009 4:27 PM