American Support for Muslim School Groups Grow
August 15 | Posted by mrossol | 1st Amendment, American ThoughtWSJ 8/15/2017 By Paul E. Peterson
As lawsuits multiply and partisans continue to squabble over President Donald Trump’s executive order banning migration from six majority-Muslim nations, liberals in the mainstream media have been pushing the line that America’s historic tolerance of religious diversity no longer extends to adherents of the Islamic faith. A just-released Education Next survey tells a different story.
My colleagues and I asked a representative sample of Americans: “Do you support or oppose allowing a group of Muslim students to organize an after-school club at your local public school?” It was the same question EdNext asked in 2008. We framed it that way because the Supreme Court’s 2001 decision in Good News Club v. Milford Central School found banning such clubs was a violation of students’ religious freedom.
Respondents were given the choice to say they support club formation by Muslim students or oppose it. They were also offered the option of remaining neutral by indicating they neither support nor oppose Muslim student clubs. And for comparison, the survey also asked another group of respondents about generically “religious” students.
Like the Supreme Court, a majority of the general public supports the right of religious students to form clubs. In 2008, 58% were in favor while only 10% were opposed. Today, a majority is still in favor, though opposition has increased by 13 percentage points and approval has slipped by 3. (The remainder said they neither supported nor opposed the clubs.) Despite the increased opposition to religious student clubs in general, support for Muslim students looking to form clubs has risen dramatically. In 2008, only 27% of respondents were in favor, while 23% were opposed. Today, tolerance of Muslim clubs has climbed steeply, to 45%—a nearmajority of all respondents—while opposition has ticked up by only 4 percentage points, from 23% to 27%. What was once a near-even split in opinion has morphed into a 2-to-1 advantage for those who tolerate Muslim-themed student clubs.
The biggest change has occurred among Democrats, whose support for Muslim club-formation rights has spiked by 24 percentage points. Today, Democrats support Muslim clubs by 55% to 15%. The shift comes even though Democrats are today less tolerant of “religious” students than they were in 2008. Democratic opposition to “religious” students has grown by 18 percentage points, while support has dropped by 4 percentage points.
By contrast, Republican attitudes toward Muslim clubs have remained remarkably stable. Fewer Republican respondents took the neutral position in the current survey than did so in 2008. But the balance between those in favor and those against has held steady. With Democrats becoming much more tolerant of Muslims, and Republican views remaining essentially unchanged, the result has been increased toleration of Muslims throughout the U.S. as a whole.
We suspect this change has occurred very recently. In 2016 the American National Election Studies repeated a 2004 question asking people to rate groups from “warm” to “cold” on its feeling thermometer. The warmth of the public’s temperature toward Muslims was unchanged after a dozen years. Yet one year later our question about Muslim student clubs reveals a dramatic shift in opinion among Democrats.
What explains it? Many of the Democratic Party’s allies in the mainstream media insist that Mr. Trump’s immigration restrictions are motivated purely by anti-Muslim sentiments, which they harshly condemn. Mr. Trump and his Republican colleagues are no less adamant that their goal is not to discriminate against any religious group, but rather to deter terrorists. Perhaps the friction of debate and the exposure the issue has received have created an environment conducive to tolerance? Neither side gives the other’s argument much credence, but both say they are committed to toleration.
Of course, the Democratic respondents’ sudden embrace of Muslim student clubs may be nothing more than a convenient way to register their disgust with Mr. Trump’s policies, even though the president has taken no position on Muslim student clubs per se. Confirmation of that theory will have to wait until next year, when our survey poses the Muslim club question again.
As unlikely as it seems, the rancorous debate over immigration has somehow enhanced the public’s willingness to allow Muslim students to gather together after school in Islamic-themed clubs.
Mr. Peterson is director of the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance, senior editor of Education Next and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
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