Trump’s hijab post draws national outcry over targeting of Muslim schoolchildren
CAIR and Minnesota's governor say president used his platform to put kindergartners in middle of an anti-Muslim campaign
WASHINGTON, United States (MNTV) — Civil rights organizations and political leaders condemned President Donald Trump after he amplified a social media post spotlighting the hijabs worn by Muslim kindergartners in Minnesota, placing small children at the center of a national campaign against their faith.
Trump reposted a message on Truth Social from the conservative account End Wokeness, which had seized on a kindergarten graduation at Gateway STEM Academy, a public charter school in St. Paul, and framed the head coverings worn by several young girls as a political problem. The image shows children in caps and gowns celebrating the end of the school year.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Trump used the power of the presidency to broadcast a message aimed at young students, and that political leaders bear a duty to protect minority communities rather than feed narratives that invite discrimination against them.
CAIR’s Minnesota chapter tied the post to a documented rise in anti-Muslim hostility, citing recent violence including a deadly attack on a mosque and Islamic school in San Diego — evidence that inflammatory messaging does not stay rhetorical.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said the president was training political attention on kindergartners because of what they wear, and that children should not be conscripted into fights over immigration, religion, or identity.
The post extends a longer campaign against Minnesota’s Somali American and Muslim communities. Trump has made repeated disparaging remarks about Somali immigrants, and his administration has expanded federal immigration enforcement in the state while citing alleged financial fraud cases — folding an entire community into a criminal allegation.
Representative Tom Emmer has drawn similar criticism for questioning whether Somali immigrants can assimilate.
CAIR’s most recent civil rights report logged thousands of bias complaints, the highest since it began tracking.
The framing of the original post — that hijabs on children are a matter for public alarm — is itself the argument, and the president’s amplification gave it the reach of the office. What is at stake is not a debate about public education, but whether five-year-olds become symbols in an ideological conflict they cannot understand.
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