School cancels Muslim acceptance event after backlash from parents

theGrio REPORT - This year, Mason High School’s Muslim Student Association, to organize an event called the “Covered Girl Challenge". On April 23rd students of all backgrounds would be invited to wear a headscarf for the day in order to “combat stereotypes students may face when wearing head coverings.”

Blue Telusma

Apr 19, 2015

This year, Mason High School’s Muslim Student Association decided to organize an event called the “Covered Girl Challenge.”

On April 23rd, students of all backgrounds would be invited to wear a headscarf for the day in order to “combat stereotypes students may face when wearing head coverings.”

Now, the event has been cancelled under a cloud of controversy.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that, as a result of backlash from non Muslim parents, the school’s principle, Mindy McCarty-Stewart, cancelled the event and issued an apology on Thursday. A school board spokeswoman told the paper that the event crossed their threshold for “separation of church and state.”

The Enquirer reports,

This is not the first Muslim-themed controversy to hit the Mason school community. About a decade ago, former school board candidate Sharon Poe and then-board member Jennifer Miller publicly blasted school officials for allowing Muslim students to have a separate lunch hour for fasting during Ramadan, which occurs during the ninth month of the Muslim calendar.

Poe is also opposed the Covered Girl event, she said.

“My belief is wearing these hijabs represents the oppression of women and Sharia law,” she said.

“I do not recall ever getting an email announcing a Christian Cross Wearing day or a booth for information about the Christian persecution from Islamic terrorists. What happen to the argument of the separation of church and state?”

Yasmeen Allen is an Iraqi native with two teenagers at Mason High. Allen’s daughter wears a hijab to mosque worship but not to school. She says her family is “really upset that the school is succumbing to outside pressure of racism and bigotry toward people who are different from them.”

She also countered that since the event was voluntary and student-led, it is technically not a violation of church and state.

“They are American Muslims, and they have a right to be heard just like anybody else,” Allen continued. “Mason schools have failed miserably in upholding their diversity mission.”