Separation of church and state seems to depend on your religion.
Where Christianity is concerned, the colleges go to great lengths to avoid any hint of what the courts call “entanglement” or support of the church. Yet a MN college is planning to install facilities for Muslims to use in preparing for daily prayers, an apparent first at a public institution in Minnesota.
Separation of church and state is clearest at colleges during the Christmas season.
Last year, one college’s authorities caught a rule-breaker red-handed. A coffee cart that sells drinks and snacks played holiday music “tied to Christmas,” and “complaints and concerns” were raised, according to a faculty e-mail. College authorities quickly quashed the practice.
They appear to take a very different attitude toward Islam. Welcome and accommodation are the order of the day for the college’s more than 500 Muslim students. That same MN college has worked with local Muslim leaders to ensure that these students’ prayer needs and concerns are adequately addressed.