East meets west in the two Portlands — meets? — hell, same people same politics, they’ve merged

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Muslim School Official in Portland Suggests New Policy on Dogs, Citing “Ritual Purity” While Speaking In Front of Iraqi Flag

Abdullahi Ahmed, the Somali-born assistant superintendent for student, family and community partnerships at Portland Public Schools, proposed changes to the district's policy on dogs and other animals, citing Islamic beliefs about 'ritual purity.'

'In Islamic tradition there is always love for animals and living things and compassion for animals. With that being said, there are some ritual purity, that Islamic traditions state and Muslims exercise, so, for example, dog saliva is considered impure,' he said.

Ahmed's comments came during an Oct. 14 meeting of the Portland Public Schools Policy Committee, which focused entirely on the school district's newly proposed policy on animals in schools.

Ahmed, who is from Somalia, delivered all of his statements while sitting in front of an Iraqi flag.

The policy as drafted looked like what one might expect from a school policy on animals: school administration must sign off, service animals must be certified and domestic animals must be restrained.

Ahmed wanted to amend the policy so that students wanting to go to an activity including a dog, such as a therapy animal event, would need to opt in, rather than parents being required to opt a child out if they did not want them to interact with a dog.

His concerns stem from Islamic beliefs about the ritual impurity of dogs and his belief that requiring students to opt out rather than opt in would be exclusionary.

He claimed that he consulted multiple Muslim imams before he presented his position to the school board.

The hour-long meeting featured multiple school-board members expressing their concerns about possibly making Muslim students feel left out and proposing possible solutions.

The most outlandish proposal came from board member Maya Lena, who suggested that puppies could be kept in some sort of a plexiglass enclosure so that Muslim students could interact with them without the risk that they might come into contact with the dogs’ saliva.

“It sounds like the students could be in that same classroom where the puppies are residing, and they could interact with the puppies without touching the dogs or getting their fluids on them,” said Lena.

Lena also expressed concerns that a policy where students had to opt in to being in a room with a dog could leave a room without any Muslim students in it, an outcome she believed should be avoided.

“Would that create a situation where Muslim families, or some Muslim families, might say ‘I don’t want my student to be in that classroom,’ and then that classroom doesn’t have any Muslim students in it? Because that would not be ideal,” said school board member Maya Lena.

maya jaafar lenya