Texas high school has a prayer room for Muslim students

[rainbow4321]

This was nice to see. It's the city next to mine...in one of the reddest of red TX counties. Though it is a LOT more diverse than when I moved here 20+ years ago. The principal allowed the room to be used after seeing Muslim students having to leave campus for extended periods of time for their prayer sessions.

http://stories.kera.org/changing-face-schools/2017/03/07/from-prayer-room-to-podcasts-liberty-high-shatters-stereotypes/

It’s a Friday afternoon, a little after 2, at Liberty High School. Student Zaki Sayyid recites the Islamic call to prayer. He and 10 other Muslim students are inside a classroom, on their knees facing east.

Girls wear hijabs. Everyone’s taken off their shoes. They spend the next 15 minutes in prayer.

This isn’t a common scene at most schools. But at Liberty, it happens every Friday.

Frisco, once a small, railroad town, is now one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. Two decades ago, three out of every four people living in Frisco were white. Today, it’s a fusion of races and ethnicities.

And the schools are a microcosm of the city. At Liberty, less than half of the students are white, while 30 percent are Asian.

[jmowreader]

1. Good on the principal

He actually noticed what the name of his school is.

[yeoman6987]

10. Yuk! The Christians will be requesting a room next

This is really going to be bad when all religions start requesting an area. Will any rooms be left for teaching. Horrid slippery slope.

[jmowreader]

11. Christians don't pray five times a day, and their prayer rituals take a lot less floor space

[mdbl]

2. I don't think any school should have a prayer room for any religion

I hope Liberty is a private school.

[eggplant]

3. It's just an unused classroom that students are allowed to use for this.

It costs the school nothing, and it helps students stay on campus. There has never been a prohibition against student prayer in public school, so what exactly is your problem?

[Soxfan58]

4. This is wrong!!!

Seperation of church and state is absolute. Any church!!!!!

[VOX]

12. It'd be wrong if the school made prayer mandatory...

But you can't stop kids from voluntarily performing brief rituals that are a part of their personal, everyday life. If they quietly go to a room to pray, and do not insist that others join them, what is the harm? Or maybe it's a couple of Christian kids who shut their eyes and join hands for a moment before they eat their sack lunches. The school can allow that, since it cannot prevent it (potential legal trouble); but it certainly cannot demand that all kids participate in a "school prayer."

Don't get me wrong -- any public school that tries to institutionalize prayer as a mandatory activity, like the pledge of allegiance, etc., well, that'd be flat-out wrong and possibly illegal.

I had a lengthy career at a major public university. One day, during the registration period for the beginning of fall quarter, two very respectful Muslim students who were new to the school anxiously asked me where they could pray, as the sun was setting. I led them to a private space and they were grateful. It didn't seem strange at all, just an interesting part of a day's work.

[Mrs. Ted Nancy]

7. It is a public school .

Has over 2000 students.

Here is an excerpt from a WaPo article

The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled that kids can’t pray in school. What the Court has done — and continues to do — is to strike down school-sponsored prayers and devotional exercises as violations of religious liberty.

As a result of those decisions, school officials may not impose prayers, or organize prayer events, or turn the school auditorium into the local church for religious celebrations.

Students, however, aren’t the government; they can — and often do — openly pray and share their faith in public schools.

[link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/20/true-or-false-students-can-pray-in-public-school-any-time-they-want/?utm_term=.bdfda4646592|
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/20/true-or-false-students-can-pray-in-public-school-any-time-they-want/?utm_term=.bdfda4646592

[mdbl]

9. That doesn't mean it's right

The separation should exist in total to keep it out of the gray areas. Let them meet somewhere else.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

5. Are students of any religion permitted to use the room? n/t

[VAliberal]

6. That's pretty troubling

Devoting school resources, including space, specifically for the religious exercises of any sect is a violation of the establishment clause. It would be equally absurd to devote school space to a Christian chapel or for Santeria adherents to sacrifice animals. A public school is a secular institution.

[HoneyBadger]

8. I would definitely require a Rastafarian room to enjoy my spliff