By BARBARA SIMPSON
Americans are used to seeing varied federal and state holidays noted on their annual calendars. Most are secular holidays, but there are some that aren’t — Easter and Christmas, for example — but those are holidays that are celebrated generally across the country. As a result, at this point, there isn’t much controversy about them.
Here are, however, other holidays that are beginning to be seen and certainly talked about — holidays that may raise some hackles. Those are Muslim holidays. I suspect the average, non-Muslim American has never thought about them, but Muslims have; they do have their holidays and they want them recognized.
One area that is seeing pressure to include Muslim holidays on calendars involves our public schools. I admit, I was not aware of the issue until recently, but in fact, it is something that has already been raised for our public schools in a variety of states across the country. New York City was the first big-city school district to do so — voting in 2015 to close schools on those Muslim holidays.
Eid is the Muslim holiday in question. In fact, Muslims celebrate two Eids — Eid al-Fitr is early in the year and Eid al-Adha later. The dates are different each year because Muslims use a Lunar Islamic Calendar. The request is for Muslim holidays to be included among the holidays now listed on school calendars — sometimes just notices on those calendars and, in other cases, actual days off, school closures. It varies with district.
Right now, the request to include Muslim holidays on the school calendar is taking place for the San Francisco schools. The school board there has already decided to move spring break next year to accommodate Eid celebrations.
But the holiday has not yet been added to the actual academic calendar. Muslim groups are not happy about that, and local Muslim groups are putting pressure on the school board to have it done. According to a report by Emgage, an organization that educates and mobilizes Muslim American voters, there are three Florida counties that now recognize Eid in public schools. Broward County is one and Miami-Dade County is another.
In New Jersey, the Watchung Borough Board of Education just voted to close schools for the holiday — for them, that will start next year. The Jersey City Schools in that state have already done so.
In Ohio, the Board of Education in Hilliard City, has voted to change the school calendar to include a day off for Eid al-Fitr when it falls on a school day.
According to Professor Amaarah DeCuir of American University, as quoted in The Conversation, smaller school districts across the country have been doing so for more than a decade.
She is a scholar on Muslim student experiences, and keeps track of the variety of ways school districts which accommodate Muslim students and Eid celebrations.
She says that such districts see these holidays “as part of the religious, pluralistic landscape in our country” — and a recognition that Eid is “a major world religious holiday.”
It should be noted that these changes are not always greeted warmly by local officials and parents. In San Francisco, for example, there has been resistance to the proposals and Muslim groups there claim it is the result of “racism and Islamophobia.”
In that district, a student-led movement wrote a petition and got it before the Human Rights Commission. After consideration, it did, in fact, recommend the holiday. At this point, though, nothing has changed. The students say they “will keep fighting for it.”
This issue hasn’t yet gotten any significant national media coverage. It will be interesting to see how long it takes before it does and what kind of reaction there will be concerning it.
I suspect it won’t be a pretty battle, regardless of which city or state is involved. It is, after all, a national issue and a delicate one, at that.
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