An organization fighting Islamic indoctrination in the San Diego Public schools – it's already in court over the issue – is now insisting on access to communications between Seattle school officials and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
WND has reported on the dispute between the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund and the San Diego school district.
U.S. District Court Judge Cynthia A. Bashant issued an order setting July 17 as the hearing date regarding a motion for a preliminary injunction in that dispute. The organization alleges that school officials improperly are giving CAIR, and its "anti-Islamophobia" initiative, undue control over school curriculum.
The case was brought by parents in the district who are suing over the pro-Islam instructional materials sold by CAIR to the district.
Now the FCDF says it is asking Seattle public schools for information about their "developing collaboration" with CAIR.
It has filed a public records request with the district to see what's going on.
"The First Amendment forbids a public school district from singling out a religious sect for preferential treatment," said Daniel Piedra, FCDF's executive director. "We hope that shedding light on the extent of the Seattle school district’s discriminatory actions will be an important step in preventing religious favoritism."
The organization said the district's relationship with CAIR is "particularly concerning."
CAIR calls itself "America's largest Islamic civil rights liberties group," but a co-founder, Omar Ahmad, "stated that Islam should be America’s dominant religion and that the Quran should be 'the highest authority in America.'"
CAIR officially is designated by the United Arab Emirates as a terrorist organization, and the federal government has confirmed that CAIR is a Muslim Brotherhood front group. The Anti-Defamation League has condemned CAIR as a Muslim Brotherhood front group that continues "to partner with various anti-Israel groups that seek to isolate and demonize the Jewish state."
"Behind CAIR's 'social justice' façade is a notorious sectarian syndicate with a dark history of anti-Semitism and ties to Islamic terrorism," said Piedra."CAIR has no business indoctrinating impressionable schoolchildren in a compulsory educational environment."
The letter to the Seattle schools seeks copies of all records containing communications to or from CAIR and any with terms such as "Islamophobia," "Ramadan," "CAIR" or "Muslim."
San Diego officials claimed they ended the relationship with CAIR in July 2017, but thousands of pages of documents show district officials were still working with CAIR to implement a so-called 'Islamophobia Toolkit' for teachers.
After the hearing, the court could rule on the motion before the beginning of the 2018-19 school year, FCDF said.
'The true faith, Islam'
The influence of Islam in public schools has become a nationwide issue.
In May 2017, in Groesbeck, Texas, a couple moved their sixth-grade daughter to a new school after they discovered her history homework assignment on Islam.
In late March 2017, as WND reported, a middle school in Chatham, New Jersey, was using a cartoon video to teach the Five Pillars of Islam to seventh-grade students, prompting two parents to obtain legal services to fight the school district, which has ignored their concerns.
Teaching the five pillars of Islam also created an uproar in Summerville, South Carolina, and in Loganville, Georgia, last year.
WND also reported in March 2017 a high school in Frisco, Texas, set up an Islamic prayer room specifically for Muslim students to pray on campus during school hours. The same type of prayer rooms have been set up in high schools in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and other school districts.
In 2015, parents in Tennessee asked the governor, legislature and state education department to investigate pro-Islam bias in textbooks and other materials.
WND reported in 2012 ACT for America conducted an analysis of 38 textbooks used in the sixth through 12th grades in public schools and found that since the 1990s, discussions of Islam are taking up more and more pages, while the space devoted to Judaism and Christianity has simultaneously decreased.
In 2009, Gilbert T. Sewall, director of the American Textbook Council, a group that reviews history books, told Fox News the texts were "whitewashing" Islamic extremism and key subjects such as jihad, Islamic law and the status of women.
Also in 2009, WND reported the middle school textbook “History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond,” published by Teachers’ Curriculum Institute, said an Islamic “jihad” is an effort by Muslims to convince “others to take up worthy causes, such as funding medical research."
In 2006, WND reported a school in Oregon taught Islam by having students study and learn Muslim prayers and dress as Muslims.
WND reported in 2003 a prominent Muslim leader who eventually was convicted on terror-related charges helped write the “Religious Expression in Public Schools” guidelines issued by President Bill Clinton.
In 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, seventh graders in Byron, California, were taught a three-week course on Islam that required them to learn 25 Islamic terms, 20 proverbs, Islam’s Five Pillars of Faith, 10 key Islamic prophets and disciples, recite from the Quran, wear a robe during class, adopt a Muslim name and stage their own “holy war” in a dice game.
Parents went to court to uphold their right to reject the class for their children, but a federal judge ruled against them, and in 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider their appeal.