Charter school in Minnesota changing student Islamic prayer time

An update to this story. Again, when some groups run afoul of the law, the authorities not only don’t take action, they defend the law breakers. At tax payer expense.

Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) will reduce the length of voluntary Friday prayers and have staff members who wish to pray do so in a room separate from students, according to a letter school director Asad Zaman sent to the Minnesota Department of Education. The school, responding to the state investigation, has maintained that it has been in compliance with state and federal laws.

In a letter to TIZA on Friday, the department said the planned change may satisfy the laws, specifying that adults — including parents or other community members — should have no role in leading student prayers. Read it all.

Inver Grove Heights charter school changing student prayer time.

OTBR: As noted in the comments section of the above story, a reader notes that Katherine Kersten helped expose the illegal use of tax payer funds for this Islamic school. In Minnesota Law & Politics, a monthly magazine mostly directed to Minnesota’s legal community, Dwight Hobbes takes issue with Kersten’s reporting. Exposing the the truth doesn’t win many friends.

Katherine Kersten gets slimed

“When Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten didn’t drag his religion (Muslim) into things, she got on his wife, Kim Ellison, about parking tickets.” This is a cheap shot that is false and unwarranted.

Kersten was essentially the only mainstream media reporter or columnist who explored the subject of Ellison’s checkered past and radical associations during the 2006 campaign. Ellison’s checkered past includes his long commitment to and advocacy of the Nation of Islam over the period 1989-1998, during which time he employed aliases including Keith Hakim, Keith X Ellison and Keith Ellison-Muhammad. After Ellison’s nomination by the DFL Fifth District convention in May 2006, Ellison essentially began his primary campaign with a demonstrably false letter to the local chapter of the Jewish Community Relations Council addressing his involvement with the Nation of Islam.

Although Kersten’s coverage of Ellison during the campaign included reference to Ellison’s involvement with the Nation of Islam, Ellison himself had acknowledged that his involvement with the Nation of Islam was an issue in the campaign before Kersten ever wrote about it. Moreover, she never “dragged his religion (Muslim) into things.” I believe that Hobbes may be, shall we say, confused on this score.

Tags: Creeping Sharia, Eduation, islam, Katherine Kersten, Keith Ellison, Legal, Life, Minnesota, Muslim, News, Politics, Religion