Parents and former students allege a 2025 visit improperly promoted Islam and exposed students to religious activities without adequate consent.
PALO ALTO, CA — A group of parents, former students and community members has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Palo Alto Unified School District and Palo Alto High School Principal Brent Kline, alleging a school-sponsored trip to a mosque violated constitutional requirements for religious neutrality and failed to protect student privacy.
The complaint was filed Aug. 7 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It centers on a fall 2025 field trip connected to Palo Alto High School’s Social Justice Pathway. The plaintiffs contend that activities during the visit went beyond academic instruction about religion and instead amounted to school-backed promotion of Islam. The district has said its policy requires religious instruction to remain academic rather than devotional and that no faith may be promoted or denigrated.
According to the lawsuit, students visiting the mosque were provided with Qurans, observed a Dhuhr prayer and interacted with participants in Noor Hifz Academy, a religious youth program in which students memorize the Quran. The complaint also alleges that female students were provided hijabs to wear and that students were taught that Islam, in particular, promotes social justice. Those descriptions are allegations in the lawsuit and have not been established by a court.
The plaintiffs argue that the activities amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of religion by a public school. They say students faced pressure to participate in or appear connected with religious expression because the activities occurred during a school-sponsored program. The suit raises claims under the First and Fourteenth amendments, along with claims under California constitutional provisions, state education law, privacy law and negligence principles.
The lawsuit also raises concerns about photographs taken during the visit. It alleges that identifiable students were photographed inside the mosque while wearing religious attire and that some images were later publicly posted by the host institution. The plaintiffs contend that parents were not given sufficiently specific information or meaningful consent covering religiously related activities, photography inside the mosque and public distribution of the images.
The complaint also challenges the involvement of Zahra Billoo, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Plaintiffs allege that the district failed to adequately vet or supervise her participation and object to statements they say she has made about Jewish people. Billoo disputed the broader characterization of the field trip in comments to the San Francisco Chronicle, saying students were learning about different perspectives and that participation in religious practices was voluntary.
Billoo told the newspaper that public schools must remain neutral toward religion but said neutrality does not require schools to shield students from religious viewpoints. She described the visit as educational rather than coercive and said students who observed prayer were being taught about Islamic practices. The competing accounts are likely to become important as the case examines where courts draw the line between teaching about religion and government promotion or coercion involving religion.
Palo Alto Unified Superintendent Jason Glass told the Chronicle that the district learned about the lawsuit through news reports and had not yet been formally served when he commented on the case. Glass said district policy requires instruction about religion to be academic, not devotional, and prohibits promoting or denigrating any faith. He said the district was reviewing its practices and declined to discuss the substance of the pending litigation further.
The plaintiffs include an organization called Community Members for Religious Neutrality in Public Schools — San Francisco Bay Area, along with named and anonymous individuals. The complaint identifies participants from Jewish, Hindu and Zoroastrian backgrounds, including parents and former Palo Alto High students. Several plaintiffs are proceeding under initials, with the complaint saying they fear personal harm if publicly identified.
The lawsuit asks the court for declarations that the challenged district practices violated federal and California law. It also seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions that would bar the district and school leadership from sponsoring activities that endorse religion, coerce student religious participation or publicly associate students with a religion without specific informed parental consent. The case remains at an early stage, and the allegations have not been adjudicated.
Author note: Last updated August 20, 2026.