A principal at a Minnesota public school has decided to ban all major holidays including Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas to appease all religions and be "inclusive."
Principal Scott Masini of the Bruce Vento Elementary School posted a letter last week to a private Facebook group about his decision to ban the holidays.
"I have come to the difficult decision to discontinue the celebration of the dominant holidays until we can come to a better understanding of how the dominant view will suppress someone else's view," he said, according to the Star Tribune.
He added that one of his concerns "is whether or not this practice is encroaching on the educational opportunities of others and threatening the culture of tolerance and respect for all."
"I'm struggling with this and I don't know what the right answer is. But, what I do know is celebrating some holidays and not others is not inclusive of all of the students we serve," he explained.
He listed the banned holidays as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine's Day.
Masini has been with the district for about 20 years and said he expected that the ban "will be an unpopular decision with some of you."
Netizens criticised the decision.
"Ban Christmas??? What.....! This is very wrong. This is the USA and as I know it.... 'One nation, under God'. So sad of what this great country was and now what we have become...You sir, are a child's nightmare and Grinch," posted one commenter, according to the Gospel Herald.
"That is what we are missing today, and we are much the poorer for it—we are not a community any longer. There is no sense of 'us' as a family, a community, a nation. In our pell-mell rush not to offend anybody, we have abandoned the shared rituals that bind us," another wrote.
Saint Paul Public School told the Star Tribune that "because Saint Paul Public Schools is a diverse district that is filled with families from around the world we strive to respect all cultures and all students."
"We recognise that not every student celebrates or participates in some or all holidays. We have a board policy that discourages programs and festivities that celebrate observances unless they are required by law," the district said.
Fox News contributor Todd Starnes said the ban is "a case of ethnic sensitivity."
The school has diverse population such as Asian Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Caucasian Americans.
"That's all well and good, but the children live in America now. They are presumably Americans. As such they and their families should be acclimating to the American way of life," he wrote. "They no longer live in Somalia. They live in the United States. And in the United States we celebrate St. Valentine's Day and Thanksgiving and Christmas."
