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Media Matters – October 28, 2005
O'Reilly: Closing public schools for Muslim holiday
"absurd in a Judeo-Christian country"
On the October 27 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly called the idea of closing public schools for the observance of Muslim holidays "absurd in a Judeo-Christian country." O'Reilly made this remark during a discussion with Hillsborough County, Florida, commissioner Brian Blair, who opposed the Hillsborough County school board's decision to keep public schools open on Yom Kippur and Good Friday during the 2006-2007 school year, a departure from the school district's earlier practice of closing schools on those days.
In December 2004, Hillsborough County Muslims, with the backing of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, asked the school board to close schools on the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Instead of giving students the day off on Eid Al-Fitr, the school board voted to keep schools open on Yom Kippur and Good Friday during the 2006-2007 school year, reasoning that the school district could close schools on days when a substantial number of students would be absent but could not close schools specifically for the observance of religious holidays. The school district will continue its practice of allowing students to take days off on religious holidays, although schools will remain open…..
http://mediamatters.org/items/200510280006
St. Petersburg Times - October 29, 2005
School board squashes minority rights
Re: School calendar will be strictly secular, Oct. 26.
The recent Hillsborough County School Board decision not to grant a day for Muslim students to observe Eid al-Fitr and to rescind the day given for Jewish students to observe Yom Kippur is unfortunate because the board's action by accommodating only Christian students is thereby a de facto trampling of minority rights - something the Constitution and Bill of Rights prohibit.
A December holiday still stands to accommodate Christians. Furthermore, most Christians in the United States have never observed Good Friday as a day off. Since Easter always is on a Sunday, that holiday is also not in jeopardy. So the only negative impacts are on the minority students, Jewish and Muslim, who only asked for one day for a religious observance. I hope a constitutional challenge is forthcoming.
-- Rev. Robert L. White, Valrico
http://sptimes.com/2005/10/29/Opinion/Florida_redistricting.shtml
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