Oh No! You Didn’t?!

Brenda Gazzar writes in the Los Angeles Daily News:

An Acton school district superintendent said Wednesday he has banned depicting religious leaders after middle school students drew images on a history worksheet of Muhammad, which is forbidden in Islam.

Following a parent’s complaint and media inquiries, Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District Superintendent Brent Woodard told a reporter Tuesday he would consult with an expert on Islam to determine whether a vocabulary handout given to a 7th-grade history class at High Desert School in Acton was offensive. The worksheet, Vocabulary Pictures: The Rise of Islam, listed words such as Quran, Mecca, Bedouins and Muhammad with spaces for students to draw pictures or images related to those words.

“I have directed all staff to permanently suspend the practice of drawing or depiction of any religious leader,” Woodard said Wednesday afternoon in a text message. “I am certain this teacher did not intend to offend anyone and in fact was simply teaching respect and tolerance for all cultures.”

Whew! That was close.