Evidence of Discrimination Against Atheists/Muslims in Public Schools

A team of researchers emailed thousands of public school principals asking about enrolling a child in their school. The researchers then revealed to the principals the (fake) family's views about religion. They divided the "families" by atheist, Muslim, Christian and no mention of religion. The results showed principles were significantly less likely to respond to an email if the inquiry revealed atheism and Islam.

There could have been other reasons why the Principals did not respond. And, many of the them did. But the statistics in this experiment showed a pattern that is disappointing. 

The researchers also sent emails from Protestant and Catholic "parents" asking if there would be any problem with a child enrolling. The rate of response to those inquiries was much higher.

Part of the experiment was to gauge responses to style. The inquiries were made in various ways. Some were rather "aggressive" and included a quotation from Richard Dawkins. Two other styles were medium and low levels of aggressiveness. This was also done from "parents" of Muslim children. Aggressive styles in this category included quotations from Mohamed. Christian "parents" sent the same kinds of messages.

The more aggressive the inquiry from atheists and Muslims the less likely it was that Principals would respond. The pattern did not play our with emails from Christian "parents." For whatever reason Principals did not want conversations with atheist or Muslim parents but had little problem with Christian ones.

I wish it were possible to find out why this pattern exists. Is it because principals are prejudiced or do not know how to interact with atheists and Muslim or just don't like them?

One thing the experiment did was to present a counter argument to Christians who say public education discriminates against them. Just the opposite appears to be true.