Khalil Gibran: Bilingual School, or Sharia?

According to the New York Times, there are 67 public schools in New York City that teach in English and another language. The Khalil Gibran school in Brooklyn is the first to offer classes in Arabic and English. Despite criticism spurred by Arabic's connection to Islam, including an article entitled “A Madrassa Grows in Brooklyn,” by Daniel Pipes, the director of The Middle East Forum, in which he said: “Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage,” the school opened in September 2007, but its founding principle Debbie Almontaser, had been forced into resigning less than a month before.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. From this comes the idea of the separation of church and state. Championed by Thomas Jefferson and upheld through many Supreme Court Decisions, it has led to the banning of official prayers in public schools and requiring officials to be of certain belief to hold office.

Even so, there has never been a non-Christian president. During his campaign, President Obama had to face accusations that he was Muslim. In 2007, a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found 78.4% of adults in the United States identified themselves as Christian and only .6% identified as Islamic.

Debbie Almontaser was a well known teacher in New York City, and a prominent member in the Muslim community before she was asked to be the principle of the school. Many people had a problem with the idea of an Arabic school, like Daniel Pipes, but many people also had problems with Almontaser herself. According to the a New York Times article, “She was rendered a radical Muslim by one group and a sellout by another.”

The New York Post then misquoted her in an article, and she says she was forced to resign. Recently, a committee in a non-binding decision, found that Almontaser had been discriminated against. While it included race and nationality as factors, the criticism that led her to resign was almost exclusively based on religious beliefs.