Islamic propaganda in schools … and activist is tired of it

Laurie Cardoza-Moore is president of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations. Last week she went to Capitol Hill to meet with key members of Congress to educate them on the crisis she argues the nation is facing with the education of its children.

Cardoza-Moore says in too many cases, lawmakers are "totally in the dark" on propaganda she says is "being peddled" to America's schoolchildren with the support of the federal government.

"We have indoctrinated our children with anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Judeo-Christian, pro-Islamic content," she tells OneNewsNow. "We are teaching our children how to convert to Islam by praying the Shahada prayer. We have third-grade spelling lists with the word 'Shahada' on that.

"Now I don't ever remember having to learn how to spell the word 'Shahada' – [and] all of this is coming post 9-11."

That particular program is known as "Access Islam."

"How [can] a program as insidious as [that] … be allowed to be taught in the same classrooms where Judaism is not recognized in curriculum as a world religion and Bibles are not allowed?" she asks.

Cardoza-Moore is calling for the House and Senate Education Committees to conduct hearings on instructional materials that's fueling the rise of sentiments and actions such as the BDS movement, as well as increased hostility towards Jewish students being witnessed on secondary school campuses.

Curriculum conveying an anti-American bias, she adds, has "infiltrated" the nation's classrooms – "and this is only the tip of the iceberg," she warns.

And it's not just in public schools

Meanwhile, the ACLU is urging the Trump administration to drop its investigation into the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies. Trump's Department of Education says the Consortium has focused too much on the "positive aspects of Islam" and misused grant money to promote "ideological priorities."

In a letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the ACLU argues that the department is injecting the grant process with "the presidential administration's long pattern of anti-Muslim bigotry and discrimination." DeVos has threatened to cut grant funding if the Consortium doesn't revise its programs.

Cardoza-Moore isn't surprised the ACLU is defending the Middle East Studies program in North Carolina – and she says DeVos would be right to defund the program.

"The program is unconstitutional because it does favor the religion of Islam in a public university," says the PJTN president. "We're talking about countries like Qatar that are funding terrorist groups – and we are giving money to fund these types of programs?"

In Cardoza-Moore's eyes, DeVos isn't going far enough and should include every university and every K-12 school district in her defunding threat. "We are not to be using federal tax dollars to fund curriculum or programs that violate the Constitution," she concludes.

The Associated Press reports that DeVos ordered the investigation in June after North Carolina Rep. George Holding, a Republican, relayed complaints that it had used taxpayer money to host a conference with "severe anti-Israeli bias and anti-Semitic rhetoric."