Year: 2017

Last month, students from Nashville’s Meigs Middle Magnet School received a presentation about Islam during a field trip to the Islamic Center of Nashville (ICN). The mosque’s Director of Operations, Dina Sirois, told the students that they would “talk about beliefs and practices in Islam” and that “another little piece of your brain that has some new little storage compartment” would get “filled with Islam stuff.” Anna Shepherd, Chairman of the Metro Nashville School Board, defended the ICN presentation  when questioned by The Tennessee Star, saying that “[Sirois] was addressing any misconceptions the students/parents might have had in the context of the [social studies] standards.” U.S.-based Islamist organizations proselytize Islam to public school students through presentations alleged to “correct misconceptions,” “supplement the curriculum in the context of social studies standards” or “correct inadequate and biased” teaching resources. Rashed Fakhruddin, president of the ICN is also a founding member of the Tennessee American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC),  which in 2012 became a formal affiliate of the Islamic Networks Group (ING) and established an Islamic speaker’s bureau with training using ING’s prepared presentations. ING claims that its outreach to middle and high schools will correct “inadequate and biased” teaching resources, supplement the curriculum in the context of the standards…