A professor at a rival university is suing Washington D.C.'s Catholic University of America, alleging human rights violations by the presence of crosses in every room on campus.

George Washington University Professor John Banzhaf filed a complaint with the Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights claiming that the presence of the crosses prevent Muslim students from praying.  In his 60-page complaint, Banzhaf accuses the Catholic institution with acting "probably with malice" against Muslim students and cites "offensive" imagery all over the Catholic school as hindrances to Muslim students who wish to pray.  The complaint further objects that Muslims do not have separate prayer rooms provided by the University and thus must pray at the school's chapels "and at the cathedral that looms over the entire campus -- the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception."

According to the Tower, Catholic University's student newspaper, Banzhaf alleges that the University, "does not provide space – as other universities do – for the many daily prayers Muslim students must make, forcing them instead to find temporarily empty classrooms where they are often surrounded by Catholic symbols which are incongruous to their religion.”

The complaint is absurd, writes Thomas Peters on the website CatholicVote.  “Can you imagine a law professor helping Catholic students to sue a Jewish or Muslim school to demand that the schools install crosses, remove their religious symbols, and allow the Catholics to construct a chapel on their property?” wrote Peters. “Can you imagine the argument being that Jewish and Muslims schools using their religious symbols and following their faith traditions would be described in the legal brief as ‘offensive’?!”

“Normally I would have confidence that this lawsuit will be deemed without merit, but the way things are going these days, I just can’t be sure anymore. Simply incredible,” Peters added.

—Source: beliefnet.com