Parents at US high school sue over field trip that pushed students to wear hijabs

Parents at Palo Alto High School in California are suing the school for taking students on a field trip to a mosque, where students were allegedly pushed to wear hijabs and given Qurans.

The trip was part of the school’s “Social Justice Pathway” and the trip framed Islam as aligned with social work, The New York Post reports.

The parents’ children are Jewish, Hindu and Zoroastrian, the report says.

The lawsuit is brought by a group called the Plaintiff Community Members for Religious Neutrality in Public Schools.

The Palo Alto Unified School District and the high school principle are also named in the lawsuit.

The students on the trip also met Zahra Billoo of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, the report says.

Billoo has a history of extremist statements against “Zionists.”

A school administrator tells The San Francisco Chronicle that, according to the school district’s policy, says that lessons about religion must be neutral, academic, and not devotional, and would not comment on pending litigation.