Of the 5,000 full time students at South Seattle Community College, hundreds, maybe more, are Muslim, adhere to Islamic dietary law, and consume only halal food. "Halal" means legal, or permitted, in Arabic. The halal menu has some similarities to "kashrut" or kosher food which means "fit" for consumption in Jewish dietary law.

The campus cafeteria includes two restaurants, a food court and bakery, but does not offer halal food. Muslim students must brown-bag it, dine off-campus, or select from limited options such as fruit, tuna, and snack foods.

"Enough!" say some students, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who believe it is unjust to accept a menu of foods that are "haraam" or forbidden, to their religious beliefs and will soon circulate a petition to collect signatures to present to faculty for SSCC to offer a halal menu option. Like kosher beef, halal beef must be slaughtered and bled in a specific way, and no pork, including gelatin from pig skin is allowed. That means no Rice Krispees Cereal or smores (marshmallows.) In addition, alcohol to drink and to cook with is taboo.

"I used to live in Tukwila and it took 20 minutes of driving and, by bus, 40 minutes, to get to school," said Masara Hamam, now a High Point resident and full time second-year student studying business. "Like many Muslim students, I couldn't just go home for lunch. It is still too far to go. I can buy snacks at the cafeteria but I spend five to seven hours on campus. I can buy fruit there, but I can't just eat fruit every day. I study all the time, and want to eat meat."

Hamam is a member of the Muslim Students Association on campus and is organizing the petition drive to force the hand of the faculty to provide a counter in the cafeteria of exclusively halal food. She said non-Muslims also enjoy, and would purchase, halal food, and silverware and dishes that serve non-halal food can also serve halal food once washed. She believes that enough students would purchase from a halal counter to justify any added expenses.

"I think they should hire another person or two in the cafeteria," Hamam said. "They don't have to train him or her. They can just hire someone trained or educated about halal food. I think to retrain a (culinary) student would be more expensive to them. They don't have to open a whole class on halal food if they hire from outside the school."

South Seattle Community College utilizes its culinary students trained in traditional European cooking to cook and serve food in the cafeteria.

"I'm starting a student booth to provide general information to students, and I can educate students about halal food and collect signatures," said Somali-born Ikran Ismail, now a White Center resident and second-year SSCC student who grew up in Seattle. She plans to apply for early childhood development and family studies at UW, and is interested in science and nursing. She is Vice President of the Muslim Students Association and, like Hamam, also believes the school should hire one or more halal chefs.

"It is hard to keep track of how many Muslim students there are at South Seattle Community College because they don't ask what your religion is when they collect statistics," said Ikran, who shops at halal markets on 15th and 16th avenues in White Center. She said that after signatures are collected she will present them to the faculty.

"I am a student leader of the Presidents Diversity and Retention Committee, and have direct meetings with the school president," she said. She is also African Commissioner for the Cultural Center at SSCC, and does student outreach both by visiting high schools to promote the college, and by giving high school students campus tours.

"This is one of the most diverse community colleges in the state, and I try to bring more awareness to students to educate them and to help them avoid stereotyping Muslims," Ismail said. "When American students think of Muslim culture they see clothing and food. American students want to know why Muslim women wear the hijab and cover up. A lot of students don't even know what is halal."

Michael Ryan does. He is Dean of Hospitality & Service Occupations at SSCC and, while not a trained chef, has had 17 years of managerial experience running restaurants. He worked at the Edgewater, Mayflower Park, Hilton, and Sheraton hotels.

"Part of our culinary program includes classical French production methods that require large amounts of butter, game birds, pork, and other items that would not be halal," Ryan said.

"Just because it is rice pilaf doesn't mean it is halal," he said of the nuanced rules of that menu. "People who eat only halal food are really serious about this. If a culinary student makes an error serving the food we now offer, it's not a big deal. You might not like mushrooms accidently put into soup, for instance. But when it comes to halal food you don't want a student to make a mistake and have someone consume something that is forbidden. We are really sensitive to the fact that if we can't do it right consistently, and do it well, we don't want to offend someone by trying."

Ryan said that there is not enough room to correctly store halal meats, and, he added, "We couldn't guarantee avoiding cross-contamination. We have a learning environment. Independent for-profit culinary schools could have 20 students and one teacher and they all make one nice dish. Here, we're pumping out 40 to 100 dishes a day, and focus on production to give students a real-world experience. We are prepared to feed thousands of students a day.

"We increased our offerings of halal, vegetarian, and Asian  products last year and they were such a small portion of our overall sales, versus a huge increase in expense and effort, that it was not commercially viable," he said. "I agree that this is an extremely important topic to Muslims and others on campus, but unfortunately, from a business standpoint, it represents an extremely small portion of overall sales with a tremendous increase in expense based on the way we have our facilities set up currently.  We simply don't have the consumer interest necessary to do this, nor do we have the ability."

Ryan said that if he was presented with a petition for a halal menu with hundreds of petitions, "Absolutely I would present the idea seriously to faculty members."

Late edit & correction: Ikran Ismail is actually a student leader of the Presidents Diversity and Retention Committee. We earlier quoted her incorrectly as being the President of that committee and we regret the error.