Michigan School System to Accommodate Muslim Food Regulations

February 25, 2001

Source: The New York Times

On February 25, 2001, The New York Times reported that "officials are working on a plan to serve food that is halal, or permitted under Islamic rules," in several schools in Dearborn, Michigan, by this fall. "The lack of halal meat in Dearborn has forced scores of students to throw out lunches, school officials say. Others simply break the rules...Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, has the highest concentration of ethnic Arabs outside the Middle East, according to the Arab-American Institute. About 35 percent of Dearborn's 17,000 students are Muslim." Some of the city's grade schools are more than 90 percent Muslim.