Courtesy of Casey Kaf Alghazal
Pictured are Ramadan displays that appeared at Bunker Hill Elementary in Spring Branch ISD.
A Ramadan display was removed from the entrance at Bunker Hill Elementary in Houston this week after district officials in Spring Branch ISD said it violated a “political and religious neutrality” policy.
District spokesperson Melissa Wiland said in a statement to Houston Public Media that the school board adopted the policy in the summer of 2022, adding that when district officials became aware of a religious holiday display in one of their elementary schools, they directed campus leaders to remove it. Wiland said there are no other holiday displays up at the school.
Linda Buchman, an associate superintendent for Spring Branch ISD (SBISD), added “the concern was raised by a parent who expressed concern the display did not align with the district’s neutrality policy.”
Sign up for the Hello, Houston! daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.
The decorations included crescent-shaped balloons and four banners with the phrase “Ramadan Mubarak,” which translates to “blessed Ramadan.” It was built a few days before the beginning of the Muslim holy month, which started Feb. 17, by the Parent Teacher Association’s cultural awareness committee at Bunker Hill, said committee chair Casey Kaf Alghazal, who is Muslim.
Kaf Alghazal says the committee became formal at the end of last school year, after years of the PTA making small displays for a variety of holidays. She says she has organized decorations for other religious holidays this school year, including Hanukkah, Christmas and Easter.
“We really were covering all of our bases,” Kaf Alghazal said. “We wanted all the kids to see themselves being acknowledged.”
She said the Bunker Hill community has been supportive of the efforts, adding she was stunned when she heard the display was taken down. She does not blame Bunker Hill’s campus leaders.
“[The district] is claiming that chocolate bunnies and Easter eggs don’t count and Christmas trees don’t count, but crescent moons and clouds are not allowed,” Kaf Alghazal said. “The timing of this is obviously suspect and, again, they didn’t have an issue with the Lunar New Year. They didn’t have an issue with Hanukkah. They have an issue with Ramadan.”
RELATED: Young Muslims say GOP politicians’ anti-Islam focus is at odds with the Texas they know
Muslims have come under criticism from Texas’ top Republican leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, who last fall designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a national civil rights nonprofit, to be a “foreign terrorist” organization, barring the group from purchasing land in the state. CAIR has disrupted the governor’s characterization and filed a lawsuit against him.
Anti-Islam rhetoric also was a theme of GOP campaigns leading up to Tuesday’s primary elections.
Conservative activists get involved
At the end of last week, the Harris County chapter of Moms for Liberty posted about the Bunker Hill display on its Instagram page to its 625 followers and complained about the religious nature of the decorations. Moms for Liberty is a national conservative activist group.
“On Friday in Houston, it was ‘Go Texan Day’…a day where kids across the city celebrate their TX Pride to kick off rodeo season. Parents are often invited to come to the school to watch their kids participate in square dancing and line dancing. Imagine walking into the school for ‘Go Texan Day’, and this is the decor that greets you,” the social media caption read, alongside pictures of the display.
Courtesy of Casey Kaf Alghazal
Pictured is a Ramadan display at Bunker Hill Elementary in Houston that was ordered to be removed this week by Spring Branch ISD officials.
Denise Bell, the chair of the Moms for Liberty chapter in Harris County, said she received the photos of the Ramadan display from “two different sources” she said she believes are parents at the school. She says she did not pass the images on to the school district directly, nor did any district official reach out to her about the photos.
Bell says she was concerned because the display at Bunker Hill promoted one specific religion. When asked why she was comfortable with Christmas trees or an Easter egg display in schools, both commonly associated with the Christian faith, Bell said the holidays had become “secularized.”
“There are also secular symbols that are culturally relevant [like] bunnies, Easter eggs, things like that,” Bell said. “Those are not affiliated in any way, shape or form, with a religion. They’re just cultural springtime symbols.”
Kaf Alghazal said she understands the argument for separation of church and state, but that she doesn’t see it applied unilaterally.
“My only issue with that argument is, if that’s what you really mean, then you need to mean it,” Kaf Alghazal said. “And I’ll also say that if you don’t want Christmas trees and you don’t want Easter bunnies and you don’t want a kindergarten egg hunt, but that’s never what happens. So it’s like they don’t really mean it that way. They’re saying that, but that’s not what they really mean, because their actions are saying something else.”
Enforcing the district’s “political and religious neutrality” policy to remove the Ramadan display contrasts with board members’ recent actions to comply with Senate Bill 10, which was passed into law last summer and requires public schools in Texas to post the Ten Commandments from the King James Bible in classrooms.
Ten Commandments displays remain
Earlier this week, SBISD trustees voted to deny a request from a district parent to either remove the posters of the Ten Commandments from classrooms or include displays from other faiths. The district is under legal obligation to display the posters, but the law is being reviewed by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for its constitutionality.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups filed a federal lawsuit against several school districts in Texas’ largest metropolitan areas, including Houston ISD, arguing the law violates religious freedom protections in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In August, U.S. Judge Fred Biery in a district court in San Antonio ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor and issued a preliminary injunction, preventing those districts from hanging the posters while the case plays out. Biery wrote in his order that SB 10 “likely violates both the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.”
RELATED: Conroe ISD to display Ten Commandments after initially pausing rollout in response to court ruling
Spring Branch ISD is not named in the suit and is therefore still subject to complying with the state law.
Adam Zuvanich/Houston Public Media
Spring Branch ISD’s Administrative Building.
Emily Black Roth made the appeal to the school board Monday.
“Separation of church and state matters. Upholding the constitution matters,” Black Roth said. “The legal situation is actively in conflict, so risk exists on both sides. If the posters must stay up, we need a path to inclusion.”
Attorney Ellen Spalding, who represented the SBISD administration at the board hearing on Monday, said because the district was under legal obligation to comply with the law, it cannot remove the posters.
“You say you can’t do it, but you are the guardrails,” Black Roth said to the board. “This is the system and this is the process and if nobody stands up and says, ‘We’re not going to do that, then I feel like it’s just taking the voice and the power away from the people in your district.’ “