Ten Palo Alto High School students and a group of parents have filed a federal lawsuit against the Palo Alto Unified School District and Principal Brent Kline, alleging that a 2025 field trip to a mosque involved coercive religious activities and violated students' rights. The suit claims that female students were encouraged to wear hijabs and were told that Islam aligns with social justice principles.
The trip, which took place last fall at the Muslim Community Association’s mosque in Santa Clara, was part of a three-year program at the school focused on addressing social problems. The lawsuit asserts that the school-sponsored activity was a violation of laws prohibiting partisan or biased advocacy in public schools, and that it infringed upon parental and student privacy rights. Photographs of the students were allegedly posted online by the mosque without parental permission.
According to the suit, students were also exposed to Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Billoo, described in the suit as a controversial speaker with documented anti-Jewish remarks and sharply ideological political views, was allegedly given "unfettered access to students to advocate personal religious and political views without balancing perspective or adequate supervision." The suit references a past statement by Billoo where she allegedly compared Donald Trump's potential actions toward Muslims to Hitler's actions against Jews.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include two Jewish parents, three former Jewish students, a Hindu parent, and a Zoroastrian parent, with four other plaintiffs remaining anonymous. They are seeking monetary damages and an admission from the school district that it was negligent in supervising students and violated their privacy rights.
Billoo, a civil rights lawyer, told The San Francisco Chronicle that her involvement was educational, sharing her experiences as an American Muslim woman in civil rights and social justice advocacy. She stated that the job of educators includes teaching students and exposing them to different worldviews. Billoo also expressed concern that the parents' actions might intimidate schools from educating the next generation.
Palo Alto Unified School District Superintendent Jason Glass told the Chronicle that the district learned of the suit through news reports and had not yet been served with the court papers or verified the allegations.