Forcing Practice of Islam in Public Schools

During the 2014-2015 school year, a world history class in a public high school, La Plata High School in Maryland, was forced to recite the Islamic conversion creed, the Shahada. This creed states ‘There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah’.  A person recites this in order to convert to Islam and repeats it to pray. A Christian student, Caleigh Wood in the 11th grade, in the class take part in this because it went against her religious freedom.  She believed that it is a sin to profess this, believing that there is only one god, the Christian God. The students were deducted points if they did not recite these prayers, and the world history class was mandatory by the Maryland State Department of Education. They were also taught that ‘Most Muslims’ faith is stronger than the average Christian.’  They were instructed as well that the Islamic religion is a fact while Christian and Judaism were just beliefs. Their teacher told the students that ‘the Qur’an is the word of Allah as revealed to Muhammad in the same way that Jews and Christian believe the Torah and the Gospels were revealed to Moses and the New Testament writers and that Muhammad was visited by the Angel Gabriel who proclaimed that there is only one true god'.

Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) sued the school and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled with the school, believing that it was okay to teach these religious values. TMLC appealed to the Supreme Court and filed a Writ of Certiorari. Fourth Circuit Court argued that this teaching did not pass the Lemon Test, from Lemon v, Kurtzman, for the establishment of religion because the teaching of Islam does have a secular purpose. It also did not advance or inhibit religion or did not cause an entanglement between church and state.  Since the Fourth Circuit had previously ruled for not allowing Bible readings in public schools, then the teaching of the Islamic religion would also be unconstitutional. Caleigh’s parents, John and Melissa Wood sued the public school, the county board of education, and the principal and vice-principal of the high school.  This became known as Wood v. Arnold.

The court mentioned Abington School District v. Schempp, which was when the Supreme Court ruled that school-sponsored reading of the Bible was unconstitutional.  Using this case as a resource, if the reading of the Bible was unconstitutional, then the reciting of the Islamic religion should also be.

Looking at this case, it really all comes down to whether or not teaching this religion to students in a public school is for historical reasons or not.  All religions have historical value and are all important in their own ways and I do think it is very important for students to learn it, but if schools are forcing students to recite prayers, then no teachings should be allowed.  I do not think that these lessons should be allowed to be taught in this public school. It is not neutral between all religions, only teaching the Islamic religion. It also discriminates against all other religions. This also was not an optional lesson.  These students were forced to recite these readings, and if they did not, they were penalized. Because of this, it would be considered coercion. All religions need to be taught or none of them can be. This case reminds me of the case we have discussed in class, Lynch v. Donnelly, in the sense of how if one religious decoration is displayed in the center of a town, then it should either be accompanied by other religious decorations or be taken down completely.  For cases like these to work, there needs to be equality between all religions, or between religion and non-religon. There cannot be bias. There also cannot be times where children or students are forced to practice a religion that they do not wish to practice.  They have freedom of religion and should be able to deny practicing a certain religion that is not one they support.