Dieringer schools accused of violating Constitution with Ramadan recommendations

UPDATE: The Northshore School District, based in Bothell, sent out a similar letter with recommendations for Ramadan. The Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund said that it has not yet gotten involved with this case because it has not been approached by any concerned Northshore parents or teachers.

A legal group alleges that the Dieringer School District in Lake Tapps violated the Constitution’s separation of church and state when it sent out a list of recommendations to teachers on how to accommodate Muslim students during Ramadan.

Ramadan, which began this week, is the annual month-long observance of prayer and fasting that is celebrated by Muslims throughout the world. During Ramadan, Muslims — including teenagers and sometimes younger children — do not eat during daylight hours.

Daniel Piedra, director of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund — a group of lawyers that, according to its website, works to “defend the conscience rights and constitutional liberties of people of all or no faith” pro bono — said the group particularly took umbrage with one recommendation having to do with greeting Muslim students.

This recommendation asked teachers to welcome Muslim students with the Arabic greetings of “Ramadan Mubarak” or “Ramadan Kareem,” which can be translated as “Happy Ramadan” and “Have a generous Ramadan,” respectively. However, Piedra told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that the second of these greetings has distinctly doctrinal connotations.

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“‘Ramadan Kareem‘ derives from the fact that God or Allah gives his worshipers blessings during the month of Ramadan,” Piedra explained. “So what they’re asking the teachers to do [is] to bless the Muslim students, according to their Islamic faith.”

He equated this to telling Christian students, “Alleluia, he is risen” after Easter. This would never happen, he said — in fact, teachers are encouraged not to say “Merry Christmas,” but rather the more secular “Happy holidays.”

“This just goes to show the double-standards in the schools … the so-called wall of separation of church and state, we’ve learned, only applies, I guess, to Christians,” Piedra said.

A district policy instructing teachers to give religious blessings to students “plainly violates the First Amendment,” he added.

A document on the Dieringer School District’s website states, “The Dieringer School District does not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, creed, religion, color, national origin, age, honorably discharged veteran or military status, sexual orientation including gender expression or identity, the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability, or the use of a trained dog guide or service animal by a person with a disability in its programs and activities.”

Dieringer Superintendent Judy Neumeier-Martinson forwarded the Ramadan recommendations to district principals, who sent them to teachers and staff at their schools.

Forwarding CAIR’s letter to the schools of the district is considered an official district endorsement of CAIR’s recommendations, according to Piedra and the FCDF.

In response to a May 7 Fox News article on the Ramadan recommendations, Neumeier-Martinson released a statement.

“The Dieringer School District has not and would not violate the First Amendment by endorsing any religious observations,” she said, calling the Fox News article “based on no facts or information.”

CAIR concerns

The FCDF is also alarmed by the source of the recommendations, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which originally sent the list to Neumeier-Martinson.

“CAIR takes advantage of school districts because they’re completely unaware of what CAIR is trying to do,” Piedra said.

In a letter and fact sheet sent to the district, the FCDF stated that CAIR has “ties to Islamic supremacism, including its founding by the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.”

Federal prosecutors have acknowledged that Muslim Brotherhood leaders founded CAIR and that it has conspired with Muslim Brotherhood affiliates to support terrorists … In 2008, the FBI ended formal contact with CAIR because of its ties to terrorism. In 2014, the United Arab Emirates, as part of a federal law to combat extremism, designated CAIR as a terrorist organization. CAIR is also noted for its anti-Semitic activism.

Other recommendations included in the list were monitoring the students’ fasting, allowing students who are fasting to go to the library during lunch, and rearranging test days so that they do not fall on Islamic holidays such as Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha.

The FCDF pointed out that according to state law, students are already permitted to miss school for religious observances and make up any missed tests or assignments at a later date.

Piedra said that his group did not threaten to sue, but noted that “we do expect them to take some sort of concrete action to fix this.”

They sent a sample letter that the district could send (included in the letter and fact sheet link above) telling students that while the district protects their religious freedom and values religious diversity, it cannot endorse religious activity.

District staff must take reasonable steps to accommodate a student’s religious beliefs or practices, unless that accommodation would create an undue hardship. School calendars should be prepared to minimize conflicts with religious observances of all faiths to the extent doing so would not place an undue burden on the school … A school employee may not participate in a religious activity with students while acting in the employee’s official capacity. Employees acting in their official capacities shall refrain from discussing religious beliefs with students, including exchanging religious greetings.

In its sample letter, the FCDF also suggested that the district state that it does not “condone CAIR or its organizational activities.”

The District was wrong to distribute CAIR’s letter. Since we circulated CAIR’s letter to District staff, we have taken the time to do more research about CAIR. We have found that CAIR, based on the statements of its leaders, its associations, and its activities, has beliefs and practices that do not reflect the District’s values of inclusion and tolerance. The District declares that groups or individuals that vilify others because of their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity strike at the heart of our democratic values and fracture society along its most fragile fault lines, especially in our schools.

“If somebody doesn’t stand up and fight back, nobody is, and we’re going to see our freedoms being taken away slowly, bit by bit,” Piedra said. “So it’s incredibly important that we stay vigilant.”

The Dori Monson Show reached out the Dieringer School District superintendent with an invitation to come on the show and had not received a response at press time.