Muslims ask for 'separate but equal' high school

Catholics enraged: 'What are we teaching our children?'

ALBANY, N.Y. (RWN) - A petition presented to the Albany School Board has asked for the creation of a separate high school for Catholic students in the city.

"We feel that it would be a better learning environment for the children if they didn't have to worry about the judgments of others from a different religion," said Sharon Arroz, the parent of a tenth-grader who led the petition drive. "We don't want any less of a school for the children of our Catholic brothers and sisters, but we think it would be better to separate the two groups."

Arroz cited three fistfights between Catholic and Islamic students in the halls of Albany's high schools in the last year as a reason for the petition.

"I don't want my child thinking he could get beaten up just for being Islamic and then living in fear from there," she said. "And I don't think the Catholics want that, either."

The petition is not the first time Albany parents have asked for a separate school. Arroz's sister, Dina Karahn, spearheaded a drive three years ago for the same thing. It wasn't even considered by the school board, after much Catholic protest. The school board meetings in which Karahn's idea was considered were tinderboxes, with heavy police presence.

The current reaction of Catholics is about the same as it was three years ago.

"Is the woman insane?" asked Bridget Beckham, a Catholic mother of three high school students. "We went through this with her sister a few years ago. Why it was a bad idea. How it was hurtful. How it teaches our children to live separately rather than together."

Arroz's petition states that Catholic students will occupy the new high school being built on the city's west side and that teachers will be given the chance to transfer over. The curriculum would be the same as it as in the city's other high schools, as would the extracurricular programs.

"Hey that would be great, wouldn't it?" asked a sarcastic Rudy Weiss, a Catholic father of two. "We could have football games between Islamic and Catholic teams and be guaranteed a fight breaking out each time. Honestly, you'd think that family hadn't ever heard of Brown v. Board of Education," the landmark case that ended separate-but-equal schools for black students."

"Or maybe we have," said Absalom Tora, a Muslim father of two high schoolers. "Maybe we think that the court case was the right thing at that time, but in our current condition, with the country the way that it is, it would be less of a distraction for the students to not be mixed."


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