{"id":9056,"date":"2011-10-27T19:49:14","date_gmt":"2011-10-27T23:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=9056"},"modified":"2011-10-27T19:47:55","modified_gmt":"2011-10-27T23:47:55","slug":"lawsuit-says-crosses-at-catholic-university-offensive-prevent-muslim-prayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/lawsuit-says-crosses-at-catholic-university-offensive-prevent-muslim-prayers","title":{"rendered":"Complaint says crosses at Catholic school offensive, prevent Muslim prayers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Catholic Unversity President John Garvey standing in front of one of the many campus crosses (Photo by Rafael Crisostomo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Crosses in every room at Washingon D.C.’s Catholic University of America are a human rights violation that prevent Muslim students from praying.<\/p>\n

That’s the complaint to the Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights\u00a0filed by\u00a0a professor from rival George Washington University across town.<\/p>\n

GWU Law School Professor John Banzhaf\u00a0takes the Catholic institution\u00a0to task for acting\u00a0\u201cprobably with malice\u201d against Muslim students in a 60-page complaint that\u00a0cites\u00a0“offensive” Catholic imagery\u00a0all over the Catholic school, which he says\u00a0hinder Muslims from\u00a0praying.<\/p>\n

Baffled Catholic University officials\u00a0say\u00a0they\u00a0have never\u00a0received a complaint from\u00a0any of the schools Muslim\u00a0students.<\/p>\n

Banzhaf, who already has a pending lawsuit against the university over ending its policy of allowing mixed-gender dormitories and\u00a0has a history of filing civil rights suits on such topics as childhood obesity and smoking, filed the complaint alleging that Muslim students are not given their own prayer rooms.<\/p>\n

He alleges\u00a0that the university, \u201cdoes not provide space \u2013 as other universities do \u2013 for the many daily prayers Muslim students must make, forcing them instead to find temporarily empty classrooms where they are often surrounded by Catholic symbols which are incongruous to their religion,\u201d according to the Tower<\/a><\/em>, Catholic University’s student newspaper.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The complaint\u00a0further objects that Muslims\u00a0must pray at the school\u2019s chapels \u201cand at the cathedral that looms over the entire campus \u2013 the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the human rights office said they are investigating Banzhaf\u2019s complaint — and the inquiry could take as long as six months.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis attorney is really turning civil rights on its head,\u201d\u00a0observed Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Socity. \u201cHe\u2019s using the law for his own discrimination against the Catholic institution and essentially saying Catholic University cannot operate according to Catholic principles.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complaint is absurd, writes Thomas Peters on the website CatholicVote.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Can you imagine a law professor helping Catholic students to sue a Jewish or Muslim school to demand that the schools install crosses, remove their religious symbols, and allow the Catholics to construct a chapel on their\u00a0property?” wrote Peters.\u00a0“Can you imagine the argument being that Jewish and Muslims schools using their religious symbols and following their faith traditions would be described in the legal brief as \u201coffensive\u201d?!<\/p>\n

“Normally I would have confidence that this lawsuit will be deemed without merit, but the way things are going these days, I just can\u2019t be sure anymore. Simply incredible.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crosses in every room at Washingon D.C.’s Catholic University of America are a human rights violation that prevent Muslim students from praying. That’s the complaint to the Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights\u00a0filed by\u00a0a professor from rival George Washington University across town. GWU Law School Professor John Banzhaf\u00a0takes the Catholic institution\u00a0to task for acting\u00a0\u201cprobably with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48,32,55],"tags":[2206,889,272,2207],"class_list":["post-9056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic","category-christian","category-islam","tag-catholic","tag-catholic-university","tag-cross","tag-muslim"],"yoast_head":"\nComplaint says crosses at Catholic school offensive, prevent Muslim prayers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/lawsuit-says-crosses-at-catholic-university-offensive-prevent-muslim-prayers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Complaint says crosses at Catholic school offensive, prevent Muslim prayers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Crosses in every room at Washingon D.C.’s Catholic University of America are a human rights violation that prevent Muslim students from praying. That’s the complaint to the Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights\u00a0filed by\u00a0a professor from rival George Washington University across town. 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