Duke University announced Thursday that it had scrapped its plans to broadcast a Muslim call to prayer on Friday afternoons.
Local TV station WNCN reported that university officials backtracked after the plan to broadcast the weekly call to prayer from the university chapel’s bell tower received backlash. One anonymous Duke official told the news outlet that “significant and credible concerns about safety and security” led to the reversal.
“The idea was conceived with the best of intentions and the greatest of intentions to create unity,” Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, told WNCN. “It turned out to have the opposite effect and it was actually creating divisiveness that was neither intended nor valuable.”
Commenters slammed the plan earlier this week on the university’s Facebook page for its “political correctness,” according to the news outlet. The evangelist Franklin Graham, son of Rev. Billy Graham, also criticized the plan.
Duke now plans to have members of its Muslim community gather on the quad outside its chapel before holding their regular prayer service in the chapel basement, according to WNCN. The university said it has about 700 Muslim students in a student population of about 14,000.
The reversal comes after three gunmen believed to be part of the same jihadist recruiting cell carried out terror attacks in Paris last week.
