Islam In Schools: South Carolina Reviewing Teaching Of Muslim Life After Recent Complaints

South Carolina’s Board of Education is currently reviewing its curriculum amid recent protests over sixth-graders being taught about Islam. Earlier this month a parent complained to a local television station after her child came home with a worksheet on the Five Pillars of Islam, which outlines the key tenets of the religion.

“Our concern is that if the need permission to teach sexual education, they should be getting permission to teach religious values,” the anonymous mother of the child told Live5News.

The current school standards, which include teaching about Islam along with Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, have been in place since 2011. They had never caused a stir up until the past week.

“Up until the past week, we’ve never received a single complaint on them,” State Department of Education spokesman Ryan Brown told Charleston newspaper The Post and Courier Wednesday. “It’s the current political climate, but we can certainly understand parents being concerned. … With some of the rhetoric that has been going on in the news, they’re thinking about those types of things.”

The initial complaint was followed by a column from Pamela Geller, who exclaimed that “Public schools have become yet another front in the islamization [sic] of America.” Geller has been called the “anti-Muslim movement’s most visible and flamboyant figurehead,” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Still, Brown estimated that the backlash amounted to fewer than 10 complaints, most from people outside of South Carolina.

“The majority of our Facebook and Twitter comments were from people in Texas and Oklahoma and they tended to be right-wing activists, not that there’s anything wrong with that,” he said.

Brown said a review into the standards was already underway when the complaints started, although he suggested they were taking them into consideration.

“The Five Pillars are in the standards, and that seems to bother some people so that’s something we’re looking at very closely,” he added.

But, given that tenants of other faiths are also taught and that no religion is advocated over another, a spokesman of one South Carolina school district said she couldn’t see a reason for alarm.

“They study a variety of civilizations and all that goes along with the culture of any civilization,” Pat Raynor, spokeswoman for Dorchester District 2 said. “It’s just a study of the cultures. It’s not a religion course.”