Ten parents, community members and current or former Palo Alto High School students have filed a federal lawsuit against the Palo Alto Unified School District and Principal Brent Kline, alleging a class field trip to a Santa Clara mosque crossed the line from cultural education into coercive religious activity. The plaintiffs, including eight Jewish community members, say students were photographed inside the mosque without parental permission, encouraged to wear Muslim religious attire such as hijabs for girls, and sent home with Qurans as gifts.
The lawsuit, filed last Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California under case number 5:2026cv08249, was first reported by the Palo Alto Daily Post. According to the Post’s report, the trip took place in fall 2025 as part of Paly’s Social Justice Pathway, a three-year program focused on addressing social problems, and brought students to the Muslim Community Association mosque at 3003 Scott Blvd. in Santa Clara. Named plaintiffs include Paly parents Jafi Lipton and Josh Lehrer, Los Altos Hindu parent Pawan Deshpande, Sunnyvale Zoroastrian parent Dinsha Mistree, Jewish community member Linor Levav, and former student Sahsa Ava Lehrer, along with four anonymous plaintiffs. The advocacy group Community Members for Religious Neutrality in Public Schools also joined the suit.
What the Complaint Alleges Happened Inside the Mosque
Per the lawsuit, students were taught that Islam particularly promotes social justice and were exposed to Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whom the district’s lawyer, David Rosenberg-Wohl, filed the case describing as a controversial speaker known for hostile and discriminatory statements regarding Jews and sharply ideological political views. The complaint alleges Billoo was given unfettered access to students to advocate her personal religious and political views without balancing perspective or adequate supervision, according to the same account.
Billoo’s history has drawn scrutiny before. She was removed from the national board of the Women’s March in September 2019, just two days after her appointment, following controversy over past statements about Israel and Jewish organizations, as reported by The Forward. In December 2021, mainstream Bay Area and national Jewish organizations widely condemned Billoo after she delivered a speech characterizing mainstream Jewish federations, campus Hillels and Zionist synagogues as opponents of the Muslim community, according to The Times of Israel.
Claims of Coercion, Privacy Violations and Unequal Treatment
The lawsuit alleges the district failed to maintain religious neutrality, failed to ensure equal treatment among faiths, failed to protect student privacy, and failed to vet, supervise and monitor religiously divisive outside speakers. It further alleges the trip amounted to coercive, school-sponsored religious activity. California Education Code Section 46014 requires explicit written parental consent before students can be excused from regular instruction to participate in religious exercises away from school grounds, per the Pioneer Union Elementary School District’s guidance on the statute. Separately, Education Code Section 220 bars any public educational institution receiving state funds from engaging in or permitting religious discrimination against students, according to the California Department of Education…