Monday, December 21, 2015

Depend on the lens

What do you think of the Riverheads mom, raising the issue of Arabic script in her son's classroom?
Depends on your location.
Nationally, I saw conservative blogs against the teacher. They looked at the issue of bringing Islamic religion into the classroom and the student's rights in the situation.
Like Althouse from Wisconsin.
The NYT quotes one of the parents as understanding the assignment to be an instruction "to denounce our Lord by copying this creed of Islam," which is "an abomination" to her family's faith and that the school had simply "cloaked in the form of multiculturalism." And therein lies the problem. How do you know what the school is really doing? And quite aside from what the school meant to do, there's the question of how it is perceived, which is an important part of Establishment Clause analysis.
Locals who support the teacher attack the mom for clinging to her roots. And perhaps making the area look bad.
People who have never been to this beautiful valley get to comment online about how ignorant we are down here, assured of their intellectual superiority.
Nationally, the mom joins college protesters standing for what they think is right.
There will be no more scripts of Islamic belief in Arabic for students to right.
At Riverheads or any other public school in the country.
The mom's concerns made a difference.
Even if you don't agree with her or how it happened.

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