My school has made it in the news once again: Foster HS Teacher accused of giving students anti-Muslim handouts.

Muslim here. This caused a huge issue with us here. Almost everything here is complete BS. I will share with you a local scholar's response in an email he wrote to the school's principal and the "sources" used for his crap:

"Dear Mr Tomas,

My name is Gary Edwards I am the Imam, or religious leader, at the Gaus-Azam Mosque in Humble. I am not only a convert to Islam but also a local scholar having studied in Turkey. It has come to my attention via Facebook that an economics teacher sent the following home with students: https://attachment.fbsbx.com/file_download.php...

This is not an objective document for students by any means, but is clearly a mixture of biased misunderstandings, half truths, misquotes and religious propaganda and hate speech which clearly is offensive to the sensibilities and beliefs of Muslims, Muslim students under your administrative and educational care. This is not a document that would be considered by any educator appropriate for distribution to students.

Under the section titled “Islam started with Muhammad عليه السلام” clear bias and non historical information is cited such as in the third paragraph which has regarding Muhammad, “…he ultimately became a warmonger, killing whomever he pleased to advance his beliefs and goals. He became anti-Semitic, warring, and a judge, jury, and executioner”. The next paragraph , “Muhammad posed as a prophet or apostle of God ….Both Jesus and Paul warned that after they were gone many false prophets would come” Mr. Tomas you should clearly be able to see that the teacher who distributed this document is clearly biased towards a Christian reading of their own scripture and is promoting Christianity and warning in clear terms his/her students that Islam is a false religion as understood from the documents ‘warning’ from Jesus and Paul of false prophets. Such a document being distributed in the class could only have been perceived by Muslim students that the teacher who distributed this wanted to enforce not only to the non-Muslim students that Islam is ‘false’ but that that message was heard by Muslim students as well i.e, that they follow a false prophet and a false religion. How could you, Mr Tomas, agree to such a position to be actively voiced by a teacher under your administration?

Beyond the examples I have cited in the above paragraph, there are too many others of clear Islamophobic and Islam-Hate statements and false ‘facts’ in the document, thus this is not a non-biased document worthy of academic consideration.

I cannot describe my outrage at such a wonton act of hate speech being distributed in your school under your administration. I have two boys that attend Conroe ISD schools and had a teacher distributed such a document for ‘reading’ and ‘quizzing’ I would demand action being taken against that teacher. I therefore encourage you to look seriously into this issue and resolve it. No teacher has the right to promote hate-speech in the school. If a teacher was to have distributed a paper saying that NAZI’s were ‘good’ and that being anti-Semitic was justified, you would not tolerate it, then why would you tolerate this?

I would have you note that according to the Texas Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act that students assignments are to be “judged by ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance and against other legitimate pedagogical concerns identified by the school district [Tex. Educ.Code 25.151-.157]”, if this is a ‘standard’ to be applied to students assignments regarding religious expression, then how much more so to teacher’s and administrators regarding the students under their charge?

According to the Texas Association of School Boards I quote the following taken from the following link

https://www.tasb.org/.../Religio.../documents/rel_txempguide: What does it mean to be neutral towards religion?

To comply with the First Amendment, school districts and their employees must be neutral towards religion. They may not show preference for one religious viewpoint over another. They may, however, impose reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, as long as these restrictions do not relate to the content of the expression.

Clearly your teacher in this document has overstepped issues of ‘neutrality’.

From that document as per the link you will not that the teacher who distributed the document at hand has violated the Establishment Clause by having the Muslims students who read the document and to be quizzed on it to have to answer questions based on the document that are not what the Muslim students holds to be true such at Muhammad was false prophet as per the quote above.

Also as per the TASB’s document linked above the following ,”Teachers must be cautious not to allow one student’s right to religious expression to interfere with the rights of a student with conflicting beliefs” How does this translate to where the teacher his or her self is not being cautious regarding the rights and clearly conflicting with the beliefs of a student, as per the document distributed under your administrative care?

And I will cite the following format he TASB’s document:

Overview

May employees express their religious views on campus?

Employees’ statements in their official capacity are attributed to the school district, and consequently, employees are not at liberty to express their personal religious beliefs in a way that violates the constitutional prohibition on an establishment of religion.

Here we see the teacher at hand has clearly violated this by promoting “Jesus and Paul” two historical individuals clearly associated with Christiantiy and in the context of the distributed document their alleged teachings on ‘false prophets’.

To continue the quote from the TASB’s document:

Like their employer, district employees are required to educate and serve all students equally regardless of their religious faith. Students, particularly younger students, have difficulty distinguishing between an employee’s personal views and the lessons they are required to learn as part of the district curriculum. Employees’ discussion of personal religious beliefs could have the effect of coercing students to develop similar beliefs.

Additionally, such discussion could contradict the beliefs of a student’s parents, and thereby violate the parents’ fundamental right to direct their child’s education.—end quote

Here the teacher at hand under your administration is promoting a document that clearly contradicts the beliefs of a student’s parents, thus the teacher at hand is violating the parents’ fundamental right to direct their child’s education. I as a Muslim parent had I received this document would have had to sit down with my child and go through line by line and correct the obvious errors and misinformation.

I will expect a letter affirming the receipt of this one to you."

/r/houston Thread Link - khou.com