April 2018 – In January, Libby Hilsenrath of Chatham, New Jersey, sued her seventh-grade son’s school district, principal, and several social studies teachers, claiming one of his homework assignments was coercive propaganda. After Hilsenrath reviewed her son’s assignment online for his World Cultures and Geography class, she discovered her child was required to watch a disturbing five-minute conversion video asserting Allah was the only true god, and Islam was the one true faith. She brought her concerns before the school board on February 6, 2017, but they were totally disregarded. Hilsenrath and her attorneys, including Kate Oliveri of the Thomas More Law Center, filed the complaint stating, “Christianity is the world’s largest religion. Despite this fact, defendants’ so-called World Cultures and Geography class did not teach the students any of the tenets of Christianity or have the students read any portions of the Bible in any unit.” The suit also asked the court to find the defendants in violation of the Hilsenraths’ constitutional rights and permanently stop the Chatham School District from implementing religious instruction that endorses Islam over other religions.
