Heart on Right

A Somali-born assistant superintendent in Portland, Maine public schools wants to rewrite the district’s animal policy because dog saliva is “impure” under Islamic ritual rules. Abdullahi Ahmed told the policy committee that students and staff “should not be required to interact” with dogs, that class pets should be avoided, and that activities involving dogs (therapy animals, reading with puppies, etc.) should be opt-in rather than opt-out. He consulted imams, who opposed dogs as classroom pets, and made the comments while seated in front of an Iraqi flag. Public schools exist to educate American kids under American norms, and not to codify one religion’s purity laws. Dogs are ordinary, beneficial animals in U.S. schools. Families who object already have the ability to opt out. Redesigning the activity for everyone else so no one has to encounter a dog is the opposite of equal treatment and a textbook example of non-assimilation. This is the same incremental pattern seen elsewhere, in religious dietary rules, holiday expansions, and now animal contact. Service animals can stay protected. Ordinary classroom dogs and therapy visits should not be subordinated to foreign ritual standards.