All posts tagged: CAIR

As GOP revives threat of Shariah, Muslims call the campaign a gambit for votes

As GOP revives threat of Shariah, Muslims call the campaign a gambit for votes

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — Haris Tarin, the vice president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, had come to Capitol Hill with a group of interfaith leaders on Thursday (March 19) to confront House Speaker Mike Johnson and Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles about anti-Muslim statements Republican lawmakers have made in recent weeks. As Tarin left the Cannon House Office Building, he encountered Republican Florida Rep. Randy Fine, who a few weeks before had posted on X, “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.” “You’ve disparaged the community,” Tarin told Fine, who is also the co-sponsor of the “No Shari’ah” Act, a bill aimed at preventing Muslim law from being applied in the United States.  As the 2026 midterm elections loom and the U.S. and Israel wage war with Iran, Republican leaders’ increasingly incendiary rhetoric against Muslims has focused on two assertions: that Islam is incompatible with U.S. political culture, and that the country’s approximately 4 million Muslims, about 1% of the country, are attempting to impose Islamic religious …

Judge orders Texas to extend school voucher deadline in response to lawsuit from Islamic schools

Judge orders Texas to extend school voucher deadline in response to lawsuit from Islamic schools

Published by Sam Flores

(AP) – A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Texas to extend the application deadline for private school vouchers until March 31 due to the state’s exclusion of Islamic schools from the program. The extension comes after four Muslim parents and three Islamic private schools sued Texas leaders earlier this month, arguing state leaders discriminated against their religion by excluding them from the program. A lawyer representing plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits confirmed the ruling to The Texas Tribune. Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock — Texas’ chief financial officer who manages the voucher program — has prevented Islamic schools from participating in the program over claims that some are associated with foreign terrorist organizations. Hancock has said schools accredited by the company Cognia hosted events organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group that Gov. Greg Abbott recently designated a terrorist organization. CAIR has sued Abbott over the label, calling it defamatory and false. The U.S. State Department has not designated the organization a terrorist group. The comptroller’s office did not immediately provide comment …

Islamic schools, more parents sue Texas over exclusion from voucher program

Islamic schools, more parents sue Texas over exclusion from voucher program

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — Three Texas Islamic schools and a group of parents are suing state Attorney General Ken Paxton and Comptroller Kelly Hancock, marking the second legal challenge this month alleging that schools for Muslim students have been excluded from the new state voucher program.  The second lawsuit, filed on Wednesday (March 11) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, says state officials and the voucher program director, Mary Katherine Stout, have been “unlawfully refusing to approve otherwise qualified Islamic schools for participation” in the school funding program and that it constitutes religious discrimination. The Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, introduced by the state’s Legislature in 2025, created a $1 billion fund for private school financial aid. An online platform for parents to start applying opened on Feb. 4 (open through March 17), but none of the state’s accredited private Islamic schools have been listed as eligible for reimbursement through the program. Farhana Querishi, a plaintiff whose children attend Houston Quran Academy, said in a news release that the comptroller’s decision to …

Muslim father sues over exclusion of Islamic schools from Texas voucher program

Muslim father sues over exclusion of Islamic schools from Texas voucher program

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — A Texan whose children attend an Islamic school in Houston sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Comptroller Kelly Hancock, alleging that schools for Muslim students are being excluded from the state’s new voucher program. The program, introduced by the state’s Legislature in 2025, created a $1 billion fund for private school financial aid. But since Texas Education Freedom Accounts opened for applications on Feb. 4, 2026, none of the state’s accredited private Islamic schools has been listed among those eligible for reimbursement through the program.  The “blanket exclusion of a group of private schools on the basis of their religious affiliation is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution,” said Mehdi Cherkaoui, a father of two whose children are enrolled at the Houston Qu’ran Academy Spring, a private and accredited school excluded from the program. Cherkaoui, a lawyer who represents himself, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court on March 1.  The suit says the state unjustly targeted these schools, which Cherkaoui noted are “not schools where kids go to memorize the …

Judge blocks DeSantis’ terrorist label of Muslim group

Judge blocks DeSantis’ terrorist label of Muslim group

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — A federal judge blocked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ move to designate a Muslim civil rights organization as a terrorist group in the state, calling the governor’s attempt politically motivated and unconstitutional.  Two months ago, DeSantis, a Republican, issued an executive order declaring the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the largest Muslim civil rights groups in the United States, as a foreign terrorist organization and directed Florida agencies to deny government benefits to CAIR or those who support it. The group and its state chapter then sued DeSantis in federal court. Mark E. Walker, U.S. district judge for the Northern District of Florida, ruled on Wednesday (March 4) that the executive order violated the organization’s First Amendment rights.  “Once again, Florida chooses political posturing over the First Amendment,” Walker wrote in his ruling. Alex Lanfranconi, DeSantis’ communications director, criticized the judge, writing in an X post: “Judicial ethics bars a federal district judge from continuing the troubling trend of using his judicial office to make a political statement at the expense of a …

Laura Loomer must resume payments to Muslim advocacy group, judge says

Laura Loomer must resume payments to Muslim advocacy group, judge says

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — A federal judge ordered far-right influencer Laura Loomer to resume her monthly $1,200 payments to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which Loomer was originally ordered to pay in a settlement reached after her failed lawsuit against the Muslim advocacy group. After multiple appeals, the ruling affirms Loomer’s requirement to pay CAIR and its Florida chapter the remaining balance of a nearly $125,000 settlement from a lawsuit the influencer brought against the organization in August 2019, alleging that CAIR Florida had conspired with the social media company then known as Twitter to ban her from that platform. Loomer had stopped the payments in December 2025 after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order designating CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egypt-based Islamist organization, as foreign terrorist organizations. The governor had written that providing contract, employment or funds to these organizations would be considered “material support.” On Thursday (Jan. 29), the court denied Loomer’s request to cease payments based on DeSantis’ executive order. Judge Bruce E. Reinhart of the Southern District of Florida, who …

Muslim and Palestinian schoolchildren everywhere deserve safety, dignity and belonging

Muslim and Palestinian schoolchildren everywhere deserve safety, dignity and belonging

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — Last Friday morning (Jan. 16), students at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside of Washington, arrived for school to be confronted with graffiti spray-painted on a wall. The hateful, violent Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian messages were chilling and explicit: “F*** Muslims.” “Nuke Palestine.” Beside these phrases was a Star of David. More than vandalism, the graffiti was meant to intimidate, dehumanize and cause fear in Muslim and Palestinian students walking into what should be a place where they feel as safe as any other in their lives. That evening, I spoke with the father of a Palestinian American student at the school. “I am a U.S.-born son of a Palestinian father who came to the United States 64 years ago,” he told me. “Tonight, my father is lying in his grave likely thinking, ‘I never thought it’s harder to be a Palestinian American today than it was in 1962.’” This man spoke not as an activist, but as a loving parent deeply worried about his child’s safety, dignity and mental well-being. …