No Muslim Schools Need Apply

In the state of Texas, public school competitions are overseen by the University Interscholastic League (UIL). This organization puts member schools into five categories according to the number of students each school has and groups the schools into areas, regions and districts. They provide for the rules governing competitions and organize competitions in sports, music and academics. This system has worked very well for many years.

But only a few private or religious schools are members of the UIL. For various reasons, such as size and amount of money allotted to competitions, most of the private and religious schools in the state belong to a different organization -- the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS). TAPPS provides much the same function for these private schools that the UIL does for public (and a few large private) schools.

In the past, TAPPS has pretty much been open to membership for all private schools. They are primarily composed of secular and christian private schools, but also have a few jewish schools. But it looks like the ugly specter of bigotry has arisen within TAPPS. According to information received by the San Antonio Express-News, it looks like the organization has denied membership to at least one muslim school recently.

It is not known what school it was or where it is located within the state, but parents of a secular school in TAPPS gave the newspaper a copy of a letter asking each TAPPS school whether they should accept membership of a muslim school. It is known that at least 24% of the 220 member schools said no to muslim membership, and at least 10 schools threatened to leave the organization if a muslim school was admitted. Only 14% of member schools approved of muslim membership (and many of the schools refused to respond to the survey).

This is not the first time that TAPPS has denied membership to a muslim school. In 2004, two muslim schools applied for membership and were denied. This is a sad commentary on TAPPS, because the only reason for denying membership is because the school (or schools) were muslim (they meet state educational requirements or they would not be allowed to exist).

This is nothing short of religious bigotry. And this type of bigotry should not exist in an organization dedicated to providing for educational competitions to school-age children. Do they really think it is OK to teach children that bigotry is an acceptable value? That seems to be the message they are sending, and it should be a message that is unacceptable to all decent Texans (whether religious or not).