Arab Groups Threaten Legal Action After San Francisco Schools Drop Plan to Observe Eid al-Fitr

Two Arab community organizations are warning of a lawsuit against the San Francisco Unified School District after it backed away from a plan to observe Muslim holidays on the school calendar.

On Monday, the Arab Resource and Organizing Center and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which led the push to add the holidays, criticized the district for declining to make Eid al-Fitr an official school holiday. They said they would give the district one more opportunity to correct course at the school board meeting on Tuesday before turning to litigation.

In a letter to the district obtained by The Standard, the groups wrote that the reversal rests on "bad legal advice and law." They added that the threats of litigation from opponents of the resolution were "clearly based on xenophobia and Islamophobia."

The district first approved recognition of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha last August. That prompted an attorney involved in the lawsuit over renaming schools to threaten legal action. Superintendent Matt Wayne then brought forward a resolution directing the district to develop criteria for adding holidays to the calendar, which paused the addition of Eid until the matter returned to the board in January 2023.

The recommendations that followed called for recognizing religious holidays without formally giving students the day off. School leaders would instead encourage teachers to avoid scheduling events such as tests or field trips on religiously significant days.

The board is due to vote on the 2023-24 school calendar, which leaves out Eid al-Fitr in April, as Muslim parents and students had urged. In its place, the calendar comes with a list of major religious holidays, including Yom Kippur in September and Diwali in November, intended to "increase awareness and understanding." District analysis shows that attendance among students tends to fall on each of these holidays.

Wassim Hage, an organizer with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, called the move "extremely offensive." He asked, "What is the point of those [governance] trainings if they're going to continue to lie to their stakeholders?" The district did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting that begins March 22 this year. Eid al-Adha is a day of remembrance whose date also shifts annually. The district already observes a range of secular and religious days celebrated by different communities, from Christmas and Lunar New Year to Cesar Chavez Day, Juneteenth and Indigenous Peoples Day. Against that backdrop, leaving out Islam's two holiest days could be read as a slight to Muslim students.

The organizers noted that students, parents and teachers have repeatedly stayed late at board meetings to press for recognition of Eid. United Educators of San Francisco, the teachers' union, also supported a calendar that included Eid, but told The Standard the district put forward its own version for approval on Tuesday.

Muslim students, parents and supporters have argued at board meetings that they are forced to choose between missing school and missing family celebrations on a significant holiday, and that they must then make up missed work.