A Mosque, a Lawsuit, and the Constitution: What Should Palo Alto Teach Its Children?

Religious neutrality does not mean religious ignorance. In one of America's most diverse communities, the answer to controversy should be broader interfaith education—not fear of encountering one another.

By Dr. Aslam Abdullah

A field trip by Palo Alto High School students to a mosque has now become a federal lawsuit and a test of something larger than one school excursion. It raises a fundamental question about America itself: Does the Constitution require public schools to protect students from encountering religion—or does it require schools to teach about religion without asking students to believe? The distinction is crucial. The lawsuit concerns a 2025 visit by students in Palo Alto High School's Social Justice Pathway to the Muslim Community Association in Santa Clara. Plaintiffs contend that the visit crossed the line separating education from religious endorsement. Among their allegations are that students were offered copies of the Qur'an, girls were encouraged to try hijabs, students observed Muslim prayer, and the visit presented Islam favorably while other faith communities did not receive comparable treatment. These allegations deserve to be heard fairly. Parents have every right to ask what their children are being taught, whether participation in religious practices is encouraged, and whether public schools treat different faiths equally. But the constitutional answer cannot be that America's children should know less about one another. It should be that they know more.

The Constitution Protects Conscience, Not Ignorance

The First Amendment contains two great protections concerning religion: government may not establish religion, and government may not prohibit its free exercise. A public school therefore cannot teach students that Islam is true. It cannot teach that Christianity is true, Judaism is true, Hinduism is true—or that atheism is true. It cannot compel a child to pray, recite a creed, accept scripture as revelation, or participate in worship. But there is an enormous constitutional distance between studying a religion and practicing it.

The Supreme Court recognized this distinction in Abington School District v. Schempp in 1963. While striking down state-sponsored devotional Bible reading, the Court expressly recognized that objective study of the Bible and religion can properly form part of a secular educational program. That principle remains indispensable. A student who reads the Diary of Anne Frank is not being converted to Judaism. A class studying Martin Luther King Jr.'s Christian theology is not being evangelized. Students reading the Bhagavad Gita in a world-literature course are not being initiated into Hinduism. Why, then, should entering a mosque to understand Muslims automatically become an establishment of Islam?

The relevant constitutional questions are more precise. Were students required to pray? Were they asked to profess Islamic beliefs? Were they compelled to wear religious clothing? Were they told that the Qur'an was divinely true rather than taught what Muslims believe about it? If so, serious constitutional concerns arise. But if students observed Muslims praying, listened to Muslims explain their beliefs, examined a Qur'an, asked questions, and learned what a hijab means to women who wear it, that is something very different. That is education.

Observation Is Not Worship

We should be especially careful not to confuse witnessing a religious practice with participating in it. Millions of Americans visit cathedrals, synagogues, mosques, temples and shrines while traveling. They watch ceremonies they do not believe in. They admire religious art. They listen to explanations of rituals. They sometimes cover their heads, remove their shoes, or dress modestly out of respect for the place they are entering. None of this necessarily constitutes religious conversion or worship. A school must nevertheless be more careful than a tourist. Public school students are under government authority, and younger students may perceive teachers' suggestions as commands. Schools, therefore, must make it unmistakably clear that devotional participation is neither expected nor rewarded. The line should be simple: Teach religion. Do not impose religion. Observe worship. Do not compel worship.

Explain belief. Do not demand belief. 

That standard should apply equally to every faith. But Why Only a Mosque? Here the plaintiffs raise a question that Palo Alto Unified should answer rather than evade. If a course concerned with religion, discrimination, and social justice takes students to a mosque, why not also introduce them directly to other religious communities? That is a legitimate question. But there are two possible answers to an imbalance. One is to remove the mosque. The better answer is to open more doors. Let students enter a synagogue and learn why Jewish historical memory remains deeply shaped by antisemitism, pogroms, and the Holocaust. Let them enter a church and understand Christianity's profound influence—both inspiring and controversial—on American history. Let them visit a Hindu temple and encounter traditions practiced by many of their Indian-American neighbors. Take them to a Sikh gurdwara, where they can learn why langar offers food without distinction of caste, class, or religion. Let them encounter Buddhists, Bahá'ís and other traditions. And let secular humanists, atheists and agnostics explain why millions of Americans construct moral lives without religious belief. Then let students ask difficult questions of everyone. Equality should be achieved by widening education, not narrowing it.

Who Is Actually Objecting? This controversy also demands precision about the people bringing the lawsuit. It would be wrong to describe it as "the Jewish community" opposing a Muslim institution. Published accounts identify the plaintiff organization as Community Members for Religious Neutrality in Public Schools–San Francisco Bay Area. Individual plaintiffs reportedly include parents Jafi Lipson and Josh Lehrer, former student Sasha Ava Lehrer, community member Linor Levav, Hindu parent Pawan Deshpande, Zoroastrian parent Dinsha Mistree, and anonymous plaintiffs. Several identified plaintiffs are Jewish, but the coalition also includes members of other religious backgrounds. Their objections therefore deserve to be presented as the arguments of particular parents and an advocacy organization—not attributed collectively to Jews, Hindus, Zoroastrians or any other community. That distinction is especially important because the history of the Peninsula tells a very different story.

Palo Alto Is Already an Experiment in Pluralism

Palo Alto is not a culturally isolated American town. According to recent Census estimates, roughly 38 percent of its residents are Asian, while about 46 percent identify as White alone. Approximately 37 percent of residents are foreign-born, and more than 42 percent of people age five and older speak a language other than English at home. Those numbers tell us something important. A Palo Alto classroom is increasingly a classroom of the world. Religion is harder to quantify because the U.S. Census does not collect religious affiliation. It would therefore be misleading to claim precise percentages of Palo Alto residents who are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or unaffiliated. But anyone familiar with Palo Alto and the broader Santa Clara County and Peninsula communities encounters their extraordinary religious diversity: churches, synagogues, mosques, Hindu temples, Buddhist centers, Sikh gurdwaras, Bahá'í communities and substantial numbers of people who profess no religion. This is not an abstraction called "diversity." These are neighbors. Their children sit beside one another in school.

Palo Alto Has Already Shown Another Way

More importantly, interfaith encounter is hardly alien to Palo Alto. The Peninsula possesses a substantial tradition of religious communities deliberately crossing boundaries rather than erecting them. Congregation Beth Jacob traces organized Jewish life on the Peninsula to 1930. In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when American Muslims encountered extraordinary suspicion and hostility, local interfaith initiatives expanded. American Muslim Voice, founded by Samina Sundas, made overcoming fear through personal relationships a central mission. Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice emerged in the Palo Alto area in 2003, bringing together people from Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Bahá'í, Quaker, Unitarian Universalist, and other traditions. In 2015, Muslims and Jews gathered at Palo Alto's Mitchell Park Community Center for a joint Halaqa-Seder. They did not pretend their religions were identical. They discussed Moses, scripture, antisemitism, Islamophobia, gender and fundamentalism—precisely the difficult subjects that genuine interfaith engagement must permit people to discuss. The following year, hundreds participated in a Multifaith Peace Walk and Picnic commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11. The event brought together dozens of faith and civic organizations and passed through religious institutions before concluding at Mitchell Park. That is part of Palo Alto's heritage too. The present dispute should not erase it.

Jews and Muslims Should Be Especially Careful

There is another dimension to this controversy that deserves attention. American Jews know what happens when a minority religion is portrayed as foreign, conspiratorial, or incapable of belonging fully to the nation. American Muslims are learning that lesson painfully in our own time. That historical experience does not require Jews and Muslims to agree politically. They will disagree—sometimes profoundly—about Israel, Palestine, Zionism, Islamism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and the Middle East. But disagreement cannot become a license for mutual exclusion. A Jewish parent should be able to challenge something taught about Judaism. A Muslim parent should be able to challenge something taught about Islam. A Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, atheist, or Zoroastrian parent possesses the same right. The Constitution belongs equally to all of them. What we must resist is transforming a dispute about educational procedure into a judgment about whether one religious community is sufficiently acceptable for American children to encounter.

Islamophobia Is Real. So Is Antisemitism.

This dispute is also unfolding in an atmosphere much more combustible than an ordinary disagreement over curriculum. Antisemitism has risen alarmingly in America. So has anti-Muslim hostility. The Israel-Gaza war has intensified fear and anger in both communities. Political rhetoric increasingly portrays entire populations in terms of the actions of governments, organizations, or extremists. That makes accuracy even more important. Muslim children should never be made responsible for Hamas. Jewish children should never be made responsible for the government of Israel. Christian children should not inherit responsibility for Christian nationalism. Hindu children should not be held responsible for Hindutva. No child should walk into an American classroom carrying the collective guilt of people who happen to share his or her religious identity. The purpose of education should be to dismantle such collective suspicion.

A Better Solution for Palo Alto

Palo Alto Unified now has an opportunity. Instead of merely defending the mosque trip—or abandoning such trips because litigation makes them inconvenient—the district could create a model Religious Literacy and Constitutional Pluralism Program. The rules could be transparent and identical for everyone: Students may learn about every religion but may never be required to affirm one.  Students may observe worship but cannot be compelled to participate.  Religious clothing may be explained or demonstrated, but wearing it should be genuinely voluntary.  Religious literature may be examined as educational material, with its provenance and purpose clearly explained.  Parents should receive meaningful advance information about field trips.  Photography involving students should require appropriate consent.  Students must be free to ask respectful but difficult questions.  No religious community should be presented as beyond criticism—or as collectively suspect.  Visits should encompass multiple traditions over time rather than create an appearance that one faith has been specially selected for favorable treatment.  The constitutional distinction between learning about religion and practicing religion should be explained before students ever enter a house of worship.  Imagine what such an education could accomplish. A Jewish student could enter a mosque, listen carefully and leave more knowledgeable—and just as Jewish. A Muslim student could enter a synagogue, hear the Torah and leave understanding Judaism better—and just as Muslim. A Christian could visit a Hindu temple without becoming Hindu. A Hindu could enter a church without becoming Christian. An atheist could visit all of them without believing in God. And each might discover something that no textbook can adequately teach: The person on the other side of a religious boundary is still a human being.

The Constitution Gives Us Something Better Than Separation

America's experiment in religious liberty was never intended to produce a society in which citizens remain strangers to one another. The First Amendment does not build walls between citizens. It builds a wall against government coercion of conscience. There is an enormous difference. The state cannot tell a child what to believe. But a democratic society can teach a child what her neighbor believes. It can teach her why another family's holidays are sacred to them. It can explain why a Sikh wears a turban, why a Muslim prays toward Mecca, why a Jew observes Yom Kippur, why a Christian receives Communion, why a Hindu celebrates Diwali, why a Buddhist meditates—and why another American believes none of these things. Understanding is not endorsement. Knowledge is not indoctrination. Encounter is not conversion. And ignorance is not neutrality. That may ultimately be the most important lesson to emerge from Palo Alto’s Mosque controversy. The lawsuit should be decided according to the Constitution and the evidence. If school officials crossed the boundary between education and religious participation, the practice should be corrected. If parental-notification or privacy procedures were inadequate, they should be improved. But Palo Alto should resist a much more dangerous conclusion: that constitutional safety requires keeping children away from religious communities different from their own. Do not close the mosque door. Open the synagogue door beside it. Open the church, temple, gurdwara, and Buddhist center as well. Invite the humanist and the atheist into the classroom. Give every student permission to question everyone. That is neutrality. That is pluralism. And that is the kind of education a constitutional democracy desperately needs.