WHEN West Side High School in Trenton, New Jersey, chose a church in which to hold a graduation ceremony, they had no idea what a can of worms their decision would open.
The school’s choice of venue – the New Hope Baptist Church – turned out to be “offensive” to Muslim student Bilal Shareef, who claimed he was forced to skip his 2006 graduation because his religious beliefs prohibited him from entering buildings containing icons of God.
Said Shareef, who together with his father, brought a religious discrimination lawsuit against Newark school district authorities:
I was forced to choose between honouring my education and my faith, and no one should be put in that position.
According to an NJ.Com report yesterday, the lawsuit was settled when Shareef, now a college student, received an apology from the school district, and given assurances that it would not hold future events in houses of worship.
Said the wounded Shareef:
I’m proud I stood up for my beliefs and I’m proud that my experience will keep other students from having to face the choices I did.
The lawsuit was filed on his behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Schools Superintendent Dr. Marion Bolden said in a statement that the location of prior ceremonies was “not in any way intended” to make students or parents uncomfortable.
Said Ed Barocas, the ACLU lawyer who represented Shareef:
We’re very pleased. These are important policy changes to ensure that no student is made to feel like an outsider as Bilal was.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
June 10th, 2008 at 9:52 am
In my opinion, the fact of a church holding a graduation ceremony is quite inappropiate, but also is the muslim teen’s reason to complain.
¡Peace!
June 10th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
My old college used to hold some exams in a church for some bizarre reason. Never had many complaints then, though we did have one shouty protesting muslim in the group for a short time
June 10th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Did the Muslim student make any attempt to bring this problem to the administration’s attention before graduation? Or was he more interested in playing martyr?
June 10th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I’ll bet he was very keen to play the martyr. I note that British journalists in the mainstream press are always claiming that American Muslims are much better integrated than their European counterparts. Perhaps ‘integrated’ means ‘willing to file lawsuits for any old bullshit reason, because hurt feeling mean big money’. Yep, sounds real American to me.
June 10th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
This shows the sensibility of the securarist aproach – keeping religion out of public affairs. Each person’s interests are best served by religion being a private affair. Actual this was not a victory for muslims but for secularism. It also shows the superiority of a liberal democracy for allowing muslims some freedom of conscience isalmic dominated countries would not allow to others.
However it opens a whole can of worms. What about public buildings such as town halls which might have some religious symbolism for historic reasons? I think it must be reasonable to expect compromise from the faith community recognising the historic link between our culture and christianity. There may be a right to freedom of conscience but there must also be the responsibility to accept the history and values of the host culture and to integrate in matters that are of little real significance. Or is a muslims faith so flimsy that an image of God is going to corrupt their purity? Surely our integrity comes from who we are and how we behave, not what the beliefs of the builders of a premesis were.
Mike
June 11th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Two things that piss me off:
1) That the schools would be so asinine as to have a school function of any kind in a church
2) That the muslim kid won his objection because it clashed with his religious belief and not because it’s a church state violation.
The problem with the latter is, would an atheist’s objection get the same result? Religious belief is respected in the US, and ANY religious belief gets more respect than having none, so crying foul because the church violates your religious belief gains sympathy, saying it violates your idea that religions are crap or simply pointing to the separation of church and state doesn’t necessarily get respect.