Mayor Bill de Blasio announces that New York City public schools will observe the Muslim holy days of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, in New York, March 4, 2015.(NYT)
New York City will become the nation's first major metropolis to close its public schools in observance of the two most sacred Muslim holidays, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday, a watershed moment for a group that has endured suspicion and hostility since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Several U.S. municipalities - including in Massachusetts, Michigan and New Jersey - have moved in recent years to include the holidays, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, in their school calendars. But New York City, with its 1.1 million schoolchildren, dwarfs the others in its size and symbolism.
De Blasio, a Democrat who has pledged a more tolerant and inclusive city, described the policy as a simple "matter of fairness." But the announcement was all the more striking for its timing, as Muslim-Americans face fresh scrutiny in the wake of terrorist attacks in Europe and new violence in the Middle East.
In January, Duke University canceled plans to start broadcasting the Muslim call to prayer from the school's chapel bell tower after threats of violence. And the shooting deaths of three Muslims last month in North Carolina prompted fears about an anti-Muslim backlash. Last week, three Brooklyn men were arrested and charged with plotting to join the Islamic State terrorist organization; two of them lived 4 miles from the public school at which de Blasio unveiled his new policy.
For Muslim activists, who have spent years trying to raise their political profile, the mayor's announcement was taken as a significant victory and an indication that they had matured as a constituency with tangible influence on public policy.
"When these holidays are recognized, it's a sign that Muslims have a role in the political and social fabric of America," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group.
At least six school districts nationally, including Cambridge, Massachusetts; Dearborn, Michigan; Burlington, Vermont; and Paterson and South Brunswick, New Jersey, have granted days off for the major Muslim holidays. Many more districts recognize the holidays in other ways, such as noting them on the school calendar or granting excused absences for observant students.
But there has also been pushback. In November, education officials in Montgomery County, Maryland, reacted to a local campaign to recognize the Muslim holidays by deciding to eliminate all mention of religious holidays on their 2015-16 school calendar, including Rosh Hashana and Christmas. Instead, those days would be simply marked as days off.
School board officials said the move was meant to ensure fairness, but the Muslim activists who had pushed for the change were stunned.
"It felt like they were doing to do anything they could to prevent adding the Eid holiday," said Zainab Chaudry, who was a leader of the Equality for Eid coalition there.
In New York a group of Muslims has spent years pressing for inclusion on the city's school calendar, which already recognizes several Jewish and Christian holidays. Muslims make up about 10 percent of the student body in the city's public schools, according to a 2008 study by Columbia University.
The administration of de Blasio's predecessor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, rejected the idea, saying schoolchildren needed more time in the classroom, not less; Bloomberg also expressed concern that parents of different faiths would need to arrange child care on days that school was not in session.
De Blasio had no objections: He pledged as a candidate in 2013 to close schools on the two Muslim holidays. On Wednesday, the mayor said that the changes would take effect in the coming academic year.
Eid al-Adha, also known as the Festival of Sacrifice, commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim, or Abraham, to sacrifice his son to God. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the holy month of fasting for Ramadan, which is signaled by the sighting of the crescent moon.
The exact timing of the holidays changes year to year because they are based on a lunar calendar. In the coming school year, classes will start a day earlier in September to account for Eid al-Adha, which falls on Sept. 24, a Thursday.
In interviews Wednesday, Muslim students and parents reacted with delight. Ilham Atmani, who was born in Morocco and lives in Brooklyn, said she had been frustrated having to take her four children out of classes.
"I know that Muslims are a minority, but we have to be recognized," she said.
Helal Chowdhury, 15, a sophomore at Brooklyn Technical High School, said that every year he had to choose between celebrating the holidays with his family and going to school so he would not fall behind. Helal, who wants to be a doctor, said he had had a perfect attendance record for the past several years and that school always seemed to win.
"This is a big step forward," Helal said. "We've been waiting a long time for this."
The mayor has also promised to close schools on the Lunar New Year, a cherished cause of Asian-American groups. On Wednesday, he said only that he was "going to keep working on that," noting that he and schools officials had to contend with a packed academic calendar.
State Sen. Daniel L. Squadron, a Democrat who represents Chinatown in Manhattan, said that while he was pleased with the new policy on Muslim holidays, "it's critical that the Lunar New Year have the same result." The mayor is also facing pressure from Indian-American groups that want schools to be closed for the Hindu festival of Diwali.
Speaking at a school gymnasium in Brooklyn on Wednesday, de Blasio, flanked by jubilant Muslim activists and city officials, was asked if he was concerned about a right-wing backlash to his decision.
"People who will criticize it, I think, should go back and look at the Constitution of the United States," de Blasio said. "We are a nation that was built to be multifaith, multicultural."
De Blasio often ends his news conferences by reciting a version of the day's announcement in Spanish. As he prepared to do so on Wednesday, the mayor paused.
"I will now talk about the Eid holidays in Spanish," he said. "Only in New York, brothers and sisters."
© 2015, The New York Times News Service