Shaw University in North Carolina shut down its Saudi-funded mosque in 2020 during the COVID epidemic. As a private Baptist university, the school is NOT legally required to accommodate other faiths. Nevertheless, a Hamas-linked Muslim special rights group, CAIR, insists that it is.
Winston Salem Journal Shaw University and the mosque’s board voluntarily closed the King Khalid Mosque in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the university hasn’t opened it to the public since. Certainly not helping the cause, a Muslim sang verses of the Quran in Arabic through a loudspeaker as cars passed by near the university and the Raleigh skyline.
“We are still not allowed to have this building accessed by the Muslim community at large, despite the Shaw University chapel being open to the public,” said Nigel Edwards, an attorney for the mosque’s governing board, in an interview. “To have this discrimination occur at the hands of a university at the forefront of the civil rights movement is repugnant.”
It’s not the first time this has happened. University officials sought to turn the mosque into campus offices in 2002, The Chicago Tribune reported then.
There is another nearby mosque which is open – Islamic Association of Raleigh near the campus of N.C. State University – which Muslims can attend.
In a statement, Shaw University officials said that access to the Saudi-funded King Khalid Mosque is permitted ONLY for students, but it became a place of worship for the larger Raleigh community of the Muslim faith outside of the university. (And therein lies the problem)
CAIR and dozens of Muslims protesters who convened Saturday accuse Shaw officials of being biased against the mosque due to its Baptist roots and the availability of public access to the Thomas J. Boyd Chapel on campus.
The congregation has had many issues over the years regarding access to the building. Since the mosque is operated by a separate nonprofit with a board of directors, the university has denied several requests for public access to the mosque.
chuck says
Fuck you muzzies