Closing Public Schools on Religious Holidays

The issue of closing public schools on religious holidays has been addressed in many jurisdictions and resolved in different ways. In recent years, requests by Muslim groups for official recognition of several holidays have resulted in a re-examination of the practice. Policies in New York City and Hillsborough County, Florida, are illustrative of the different results that have been ordered. The issue is far from settled and there are aspects that appear to be discriminatory, unjust and the result of prejudice.

Specifically, Muslim groups have requested that the schools officially recognize the Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha holy days; the former marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and the latter commemorates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son.

Hillsborough County (Tampa) came to a decision several years ago after Muslim groups pressed for the closing of public schools on certain holidays. In the past, schools in the County had been closed or "spring breaks" adjusted to accommodate closing on Good Friday and the Monday following Easter; the "winter break" has always allowed for the closing of school on Christmas. The County had also closed its schools for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. The argument surrounding Christmas had always been that the holiday had become a quasi-secular occasion in the United States.

In any event, the School District decided to institute a purely secular calendar, determining that the schools would not close on the previously recognized holidays. The decision was first announced two years before and was met with great opposition by Fox News and, in particular, Bill O'Reilly. In the light of the uproar, the District backtracked and continued the observation of the Christian and Jewish holy days. In 2007, however, state law was changed limiting the number of school holidays before the winter break and the District finalized the more secular calendar, in the face of the expressed views of the conservative Florida Family Association.

(The School District unanimously agreed to retain two local school holidays: Fair Day, a day off for most of the county to allow students to attend the state fair and, in the eastern part of the county, students would exchange the Fair Day holiday for a day off to celebrate the Strawberry Festival. in Plant City. After all, some matters are sacrosanct.)

In New York City, after much intense lobbying by Muslim groups, the City Council passed a resolution that would allow schools in the largest school system in the country to close on two Muslim holy days. This resolution required the approval of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the mayor has refused to give that approval.

His argument is that the schools cannot close for the religious holidays of everyone, that the addition of the Muslim observances would be the start of a "slippery slope". However the New York schools already close, and thereby recognize, Christmas and, through the scheduling of "spring breaks", Good Friday and Easter, as well as the Jewish celebrations of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Mayor Bloomberg's statement has a large measure of logic:

"One of the problems you have with a diverse city is that if you close the schools for every single holiday there won't be any school. Educating our kids requires time in the classroom and that's the most important thing to us."

Many of the determinations by school districts are based on the practical. Years ago we lived in Rockland County, New York, in the Village of Spring Valley. There was a substantial Jewish population in the area and, indeed that number has increased over the years. The result was that schools had substantial absences by both teachers and students. The number was so substantial that the school district simply closed the schools on the Jewish High Holy Days. It was considered to be a practical solution and not truly based on theology. In New York City, the number of Muslim students has been estimated at 12% and growing. For the most part, Christian and Jewish leaders and spokespersons have been supportive of the addition of Muslim holy days to the school closings.

The situation in New York City will, eventually, be resolved based on the political interests of the participants. A reversal of the Mayor's objection would be a strong signal of reconciliation with the Muslim community by a Jewish political leader; by the same token, his continued opposition to the wishes of a substantial minority of citizens could cost him political support.

An examination of the Constitutional issues is in order. There are no clear cut comprehensive U. S. Supreme Court cases involving public school closing for religious holidays.

The Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, require a wall of separation between church and state. This means that federal, state and local governments cannot establish an official religion; they cannot impede religious expression; they cannot promote religion as superior to secularism or vice-versa. However, one of the functions of the federal, state and local governments and, in particular, the public school systems is to declare holidays. Three of them have significant religious connotations: Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Although Thanksgiving has been essentially secularized, Christmas and Easter have retained much of their religious meaning. Some attempts have been made to have the declaration of these holidays declared unconstitutional. So far, results have been mixed.

As a general rule, school systems must strike a balance: honoring the First Amendment's free exercise clause, which allows people to practice the religions they choose, and the establishment clause, which prevents the government from favoring certain religions over others. It would appear that either there should be no religious holidays or holidays of major faiths should be allowed; Muslim holidays should be included.

To take the position that no religious holidays should be recognized has no validity at all; it is simply too late in the day for that. Christmas, obviously a Christian holiday had become secularized, much to the displeasure of devout Christians. In any event, in order to avoid running afoul of the establishment of religion clause, a school district has to show a non-religious rationale for the calling off of classes. For example, in the 1950's New York City (and schools in upstate counties) began closing for the Jewish High Holidays when the percentage of Jewish teachers and substitutes citywide was so high, some schools had to combine classes or hold assemblies to compensate for their absence. This argument has been successfully urged, that schools can't function effectively or efficiently on certain religious holidays and would likely stand up in a court because it would show that closing schools on those days was "good public policy."

Would this concept be equally applicable to Muslims? Would rejecting the rule as applied to that group be discriminatory?

Likely, yes.