KALAMAZOO, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Portage Northern High School in Kalamazoo County won’t change its graduation date after a student sued the school for holding the event on a Jewish holy day.
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Senior student Minaleah Koffron claimed the school violated the Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act by scheduling the graduation ceremony on the same day as Shavuot, a holiday commemorating the giving of the Torah.
Judge Curtis Bell lifted the temporary injunction that could have forced the school to change its graduation date, calling it a difficult decision with “no good outcome.” Although he expressed sympathy with the Koffrons, he concluded: “I also have to consider the individuals who are also students and how this would affect their outcome in terms of their ability, in total, to participate.”
“This is not a case where they’re asking for reasonable accommodations,” district attorney Mark Ostrowski said. “They’re asking for a dramatic change of events, late in the game, that’s going to cause significant hardship.” He added that reasonable accommodations for education should only apply to events directly impacting school or exam attendance.
Koffron’s attorney, Marla Richelew, said the decision should make everyone “uncomfortable.”
“This is just one issue in a much larger case about necessary policy changes within this district so that no Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or other minority has to suffer the way that Miss Koffron has,” she said. “The right result now would be a swift and lasting resolution creating strong and transparent processes to ensure that no other minority is ever discriminated against in this way again.”
Koffron alleged that her parents routinely provided the school with a list of Jewish holidays, but that the school continued to schedule events on those days.
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“The list of what I have been excluded from feels never-ending,” she wrote in a letter to the school district. “Having the same opportunity as my Christian friends have is not my reality.”
A federal lawsuit to hear the plaintiff’s First Amendment arguments will have its first hearing on April 20.
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