College Apologizes to Muslim Student
The president of a Michigan community college apologized Tuesday to a Muslim student after an incident in which an instructor barred her from making a reference to God before a class presentation.
Saousan Kiwan, who immigrated to the United States eight years ago from Syria, began an oral presentation for a class in English as a second language at Washtenaw Community College with the common Islamic phrase “bismallah alrahman alraheem,” translated into English as “in the name of God, most merciful, the gracious.”
Kiwan was stopped by her instructor, Margo Winnard Czinski, who told Kiwan that the phrase was “inappropriate and unacceptable in an American classroom” and that she must adapt to the “cultural expectations of the United States.”
Larry L. Whitworth, president of the college in Ann Arbor, apologized to Kiwan.
“It appears that the instructor misunderstood the meaning of separation of church and state,” Whitworth told the Detroit News.
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