Baltimore Schools Pressed To Close For Muslim Holidays

Today's Baltimore Sun reports on the decade-long attempt by Bash Pharoan, president of the Baltimore chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, to get Baltimore County schools to close for two major Islamic holidays. He argues that if schools are closed on Yom Kippur and Christmas, they also should be closed on Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. Attorney Rochelle S. Eisenberg says that state law only allows schools to close for a religious holiday if there are also "secular reasons." So if so many teachers would be absent on a holiday that classes could not be covered, schools could shut down.