Texas Muslims organize against intensifying Islamophobic politics

HOUSTON (MNTV) — Muslim Texans are increasingly organizing against a rising wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric and policy, as state officials and conservative activists intensify campaigns portraying Islam as a threat.

At a June meeting of the Texas State Board of Education, nearly 500 people debated a revised social-studies curriculum that adds Bible readings and, experts say, presents Islam largely through fundamentalism and medieval conquest. 

Muslim educators and interfaith groups challenged the changes — which were ultimately approved — while some opponents invoked unfounded fears of Sharia replacing the U.S. Constitution. 

The vote added to a run of confrontations: opposition to a Muslim-oriented housing development known as The Meadow, immigration-enforcement actions, the reassignment of a Muslim school principal, and the state’s designation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a terrorist organization, which CAIR is challenging in court.

The pressure has spurred a more organized response, with Muslim lawyers, educators, and religious leaders attending public meetings, filing suits, and forming interfaith coalitions. 

It has brought some wins: Islamic schools initially shut out of Texas’s school-voucher program were admitted after Muslim families sued. 

With Muslims about 2 percent of the state’s population and gaining representation in public office, advocates say the fight is over a deeper question — who belongs in Texas, and whose faith is treated as compatible with American citizenship — and that they intend to answer it through the courts and public institutions rather than in silence.