Parents Sue School District Over Mosque Field Trip, Claim Religious Indoctrination

A group of parents is suing the Palo Alto Unified School District and Brent Kline, principal of Palo Alto High School, in federal court, alleging the school’s “Social Justice Pathway” turned a class field trip to a Santa Clara mosque into taxpayer-funded religious indoctrination. The suit, filed August 7 in the Northern District of California, ...

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A group of parents is suing the Palo Alto Unified School District and Brent Kline, principal of Palo Alto High School, in federal court, alleging the school’s “Social Justice Pathway” turned a class field trip to a Santa Clara mosque into taxpayer-funded religious indoctrination.

The suit, filed August 7 in the Northern District of California, centers on a fall 2025 visit to the Muslim Community Association mosque in Santa Clara. According to the complaint, students were encouraged to don Islamic religious attire, given Qurans to take home, and observed a midday prayer service.

Ten individual plaintiffs and an advocacy group, Community Members for Religious Neutrality in Public Schools — San Francisco Bay Area, brought the case. Eight are Jewish; the Hindu and Zoroastrian plaintiffs live in neighboring communities and do not have children enrolled at Palo Alto. The complaint alleges that the mosque is the only house of worship the program visits, and alleges its website has promoted both the school visits and local religious conversions.

“[T]he District failed to maintain religious neutrality, failed to ensure equal treatment among faiths, failed to protect student privacy, and failed to vet, supervise, and monitor religiously divisive outside speakers during the school-sponsored event,” the filing claims.

The Pathway is a three-year course track open to Palo Alto High students beginning sophomore year. The complaint alleges that during the mosque visit, students were exposed to Zahra Billoo, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), whom the filing describes as a “controversial outside speaker with publicly documented hostile statements concerning Jews.” Billoo, the suit says, “was allowed unfettered access to students to advocate personal religious and political views without balancing perspective or adequate supervision.”

Billoo told the San Francisco Chronicle the suit was “misguided,” saying students who observed prayer were taught about Islamic religious practices and that participation was voluntary. “One of the most important ways we combat hate is to learn about each other,” she said, adding that she believed the plaintiffs were trying to intimidate districts out of that work.

The filing states that “students were photographed during the visit by the Islamic institution hosting the event in a manner that promoted participation in Islamic customs,” and that “identifiable student images taken inside the mosque while students wore religious attire later were publicly posted for promotional and/or community-facing purposes.” Parents, the suit alleges, were never given meaningful informed consent for the photography or its publication, nor were they given a meaningful opt-out.

Superintendent Jason Glass told the Chronicle the district learned through news coverage and has not been served. Glass said he had read the complaint but that the district could not verify its allegations, adding that any instruction touching religion must be academic rather than devotional. He said the district is reviewing its practices.

The plaintiffs demand a jury trial and seek declaratory relief, an injunction barring the district from sponsoring similar activities, an order requiring defendants to remove the student images to the extent they can, nominal damages, and attorneys’ fees.