The Peel District School Board says it “sincerely appreciates” a policy statement from the Ontario Human Rights Commission emphasizing the responsibility of educators to accommodate students’ religious needs.

“It has been frustrating to hear some in the public disguise a campaign of hate against our Muslim students behind a ‘no religion in schools’ tag line,” Peel District School Board spokesperson Brian Woodland said in an email Monday, referring to recent demands for a ban on in-school Muslim Friday prayers.

“And for others to say they ‘don’t believe in religious accommodation’ — religious accommodation is not like unicorns that you do or do not believe in,” Woodland said. “It is the law and we follow that law. The policy statement clearly shows that obligation, and reinforces that the accommodation must be appropriate and defines what ‘competing rights’ is and is not.”

The OHRC statement, posted to the commission’s website Friday, said “organizations, including education providers, have a duty to maintain environments free from discrimination and harassment based on creed.”

“Education providers are responsible for accommodating creed-related needs to the point of undue hardship,” the statement said, noting that the Ontario Human Rights Code only lists three considerations to assess what “undue hardship” entails: cost, outside sources of funding and health and safety requirements.

“No other factors can be properly considered. For example, business inconvenience, employee morale, third-party preferences, etc. are not valid factors in assessing whether an accommodation causes undue hardship.”

Although the statement does not mention the Peel District School Board, it does make specific reference to the Friday group prayers Muslims partake in, called Jummah.

“Religious and creed observances sometimes take communal forms,” the statement said. “An education provider may consider offering on-site space to observe congregational forms of worship . . . where people require accommodation during normal school hours to fulfill congregational worship needs.”

It cites a high school permitting “the use of a designated private space to accommodate the weekly Friday congregational prayer observances of its large Muslim student population” as an example.

Some schools in Peel provide space for these prayers and have done so for the past two decades, but critics have recently begin targeting the practice, saying it leads to segregation and inappropriate exposure to religion in a secular school system. Tensions boiled over during a March 22 board meeting, during which police had to clear the room after about 80 protesters began yelling Islamophobic comments and one person ripped up and then stomped on a copy of the Qur’an.

The incident, and anti-Muslim rhetoric in general, was swiftly condemned by Ontario Education Minister Mitzie Hunter, Children and Youth Services Minister Michael Coteau, the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, Peel District School Board and Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey, among others.

In an email, commission spokesperson Rosemary Bennett said there was “no one incident” that prompted the statement’s release.

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“Instead, it was prepared because of the continuing discussions throughout Ontario relating to creed and human rights,” Bennett wrote.