Three Religions Are Behind One Mosque Field Trip Lawsuit

A mosque field trip lawsuit filed against one of California's wealthiest school districts carries an odd detail: the families suing don't share a religion. Ten plaintiffs took Palo Alto Unified School District and Palo Alto High School principal Brent Kline to federal court on Aug. 7, and the group includes Jewish parents and former students, a Hindu parent from Los Altos and a Zoroastrian parent from Sunnyvale. They filed jointly as Community Members for Religious Neutrality in Public Schools.

The trip happened back in fall 2025. Students in Paly's Social Justice Pathway — a voluntary three-year program open to sophomores and up — visited the Muslim Community Association mosque on Scott Boulevard in Santa Clara. According to the complaint, girls were offered hijabs to wear, students went home with copies of the Quran, and they were photographed inside the building without a parent ever signing off on it.

That's the line the whole case turns on. Nobody seriously disputes that public schools can teach about religion; California's own history framework expects them to. The fight is over whether an afternoon involving borrowed head coverings, gifted scripture and a working house of worship stopped being a lesson and became participation. A case management conference is set for November, so this sits unresolved through most of the coming school year.

Who Is Actually Suing Here

Most of the ten plaintiffs are Jewish, and four are proceeding anonymously. But the two named non-Jewish plaintiffs are what make the filing unusual: Pawan Deshpande, a Hindu parent, and Dinsha Mistree, a Zoroastrian parent. Former student Sasha Ava Lehrer and parent Josh Lehrer are also named. Attorney David Rosenberg-Wohl is representing the group. A multi-faith coalition is much harder to write off as one angry family with a grievance.

What the Families Say Happened That Day

The complaint doesn't allege one bad moment. It stacks four separate problems, each of which would be arguable on its own and none of which the district has answered in court yet. These are allegations, not findings.

Hijabs Offered, Qurans Handed Out

Female students were provided head coverings to wear inside, the suit says, and students left with Qurans as gifts. Courts have generally tolerated costume and simulation in a classroom. Handing a minor a religious text to take home is a different act, because it follows the student out of the building and into the house.

Photographs Nobody's Parent Approved

The plaintiffs allege students were photographed inside the mosque and the images were then distributed, with no parental consent obtained. This is the quietest claim and possibly the most winnable one — it doesn't require a judge to decide anything about Islam, only about student privacy and district photo-release procedure.

The Guest Speaker the Suit Objects To

Students heard from Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' San Francisco Bay Area chapter. The complaint calls her a controversial choice and cites what it describes as documented hostile statements about Jews. That is the plaintiffs' characterization; it has not been tested in court. The related claim is procedural — that the district failed to vet outside speakers at all.

What the Mosque Field Trip Lawsuit Has to Prove

The Establishment Clause bars a public school from advancing a particular faith. Since the Supreme Court's 2022 Kennedy v. Bremerton decision, judges weigh these disputes against historical practice rather than the old three-part Lemon test, and coercion carries a lot of weight. So the plaintiffs' strongest ground isn't that Islam was discussed — it's the allegation that Islam was singled out as the faith aligned with social justice while students were nudged into devotional behavior.

Superintendent Jason Glass, who declined to comment on pending litigation, drew the district's line in a single sentence.

Instruction about religion in our schools must be academic, not devotional.

A California Case That Went the Other Way

Parents have tried this before, roughly 60 miles east. In fall 2001, a seventh grader at Excelsior Middle School in Byron did a three-week world history unit in which students role-played a hajj to Mecca and could choose to wear Arabic dress. His family sued. The district court found no violation, leaning hard on the fact that the family never used the available opt-out. The Ninth Circuit agreed the activities weren't overt religious exercise, and the Supreme Court declined the case in 2006, according to Education Week.

The Palo Alto families face a tougher version of that precedent and one real advantage over it: nothing went home with the Byron students. Whether taking a Quran off campus counts as crossing from study into endorsement is genuinely unsettled.

What to Check Before the Next Permission Slip

You don't need a federal case to protect your own kid. Before signing anything for a trip to a religious site, ask the school four things in writing:

• Is there an opt-out, and does refusing cost my child a grade?
• Will students be asked to wear anything or receive any materials?
• Who is the outside speaker, and who approved them?
• Will photos be taken, and where do they go?

Districts nationwide will be reading the docket in this mosque field trip lawsuit, because the outcome sets the practical rules for any visit to a church, temple, gurdwara or synagogue. Watch for November's conference and for whether Palo Alto Unified moves to dismiss — that filing will be the first real look at the district's defense.