“MARCH on,” wrote the Lebanese-American philosopher and poet Khalil Gibran, “and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life’s path.” Thus did the pupils, staff and administrators of the institution named after him march through a storm of controversy and into the doors of the Khalil Gibran International Academy this week.
The school, which will teach Arabic as well as Middle Eastern history and culture and will inevitably discuss Islam, has been under scrutiny since the New York Department of Education announced its creation last February. Conservative commentators have muttered that it will be a training ground for terrorists. Many portrayed Debbie Almontaser, the school’s Yemeni-American principal, as an apologist for suicide-bombers after she insufficiently denounced an Arab women’s group that produces “Intifada NYC” T-shirts.
New Yorkers have offered a sympathetic ear to the doomsayers. The school was relocated in May as a result of opposition from the parents of students at the school that was meant, at first, to share its Brooklyn building with the Academy. Joel Klein, who is in charge of New York’s schools, considered delaying its opening by a year. And Ms Almontaser resigned last month after receiving only tepid support (“she’s certainly not a terrorist,” said Michael Bloomberg, the mayor). Mr Klein hastily named an interim principal—a non-Arabic-speaking Jewish woman—and New York’s first Arab-language public school opened as scheduled on September 4th.
Beefy security guards funnelled the pupils through a gauntlet of media and several dozen silent supporters. Opponents protested at City Hall, but at the academy the mood was buoyant. “This is our country, too,” said a beaming Najat Handou, a Moroccan-born Brooklynite, after dropping her son off for class.
New York operates nearly 70 dual-language public schools. They are gaining popularity across the country, particularly in the heavily-Hispanic South and south-west. But this school—like a Hebrew-language public school that is causing controversy in Florida—strikes at the American conviction that paying taxes to support religious teachings violates the separation of church and state. At the Gibran Academy, bits of Islam are probably unavoidable. But concerns that it will be an Islamist Trojan horse are probably unwarranted. The education department has repeatedly stated that if the school becomes a vehicle for religious indoctrination it will be closed. And it seems unlikely that much Islamic extremism will be taught at a school that is, after all, named after a Christian.
