Muslim Assimilation in Minnesota ... or Not

After numerous complaints, the Minnesota Department of Education is investigating the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a charter school established and maintained with taxpayer funds for possibly - just possibly - promoting Islam on the public dime.

Now, what would possibly lead anyone to suspect that this publicly-financed school might be promoting Islam?

Its executive director, Asad Zaman, is an imam, or Muslim religious leader. The school shares a building with a mosque and the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society, which the Chicago Tribune has described as the American branch of the Muslim Brotherhood -- "the world's most influential Islamic fundamentalist group."

Most of TiZA's students are Muslim, many from low-income immigrant families. The school breaks daily for prayer, its cafeteria serves halal food (permissible under Islamic law), and Arabic is a required subject.

School buses do not leave until after-school Muslim Studies classes, which many students attend, have ended for the day.

The more pertinent question for the Minnesota Department of Education is why anyone wouldn't think the sole purpose of this entity was the promotion of Islam.

But none of this would be an issue in Minnesota if the following were not true:

Most of TiZA's students are Muslim, many from low-income immigrant families. The school breaks daily for prayer, its cafeteria serves halal food (permissible under Islamic law), and Arabic is a required subject.

Why is the U.S. admitting to its shores, immigrants from the Muslim world? Prior to September 11, 2001, they should not have been admitted because their native culture was too alien to America's. After that date, because their native culture is openly hostile to America's. But, apparently, American political leaders never bothered to properly learn the lessons of that day, or the very clear lessons of the disaster of Muslim immigration in Europe. As a result, Muslims continue to immigrate and - just as in Europe and elsewhere - refuse to assimilate.

Americans established their public education system, in part, to help the assimilation of immigrants. But that only works if those immigrants receive the same public education as everyone else. Creating publicly funded schools like TiZA flies directly in the face of that goal and declares that the new meaning of public education is to prevent assimilation and Americanization.