A Texas high school student told members of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government that he received death threats for speaking out about an Islamic group that passed out hijabs and copies of the Quran on a campus at Wylie East High School.
Marco Hunter-Lopez, a 16-year-old student at the high school in Wylie, Texas, a Dallas suburb, provided written testimony to the committee after being invited to testify about incidents he observed on his campus earlier this year. Hunter-Lopez founded the school’s Republican Student Club as a freshman student last year and told the committee he believes his group is treated differently from other groups at the school.
Hunter-Lopez told members his group faced myriad challenges from the school administration, which initially denied his club permission to operate on campus, claiming a “district-wide policy against political clubs” prohibited the establishment of his group. According to Hunter-Lopez, efforts to establish the Republican Student Club were ultimately successful after much back-and-forth with the staff.
The young student highlighted the disparate treatment the Republican Student Club received by campus administrators, saying, “Principals were caught taking down our approved posters while I was out of town. I have documented a timeline of specific instances of unfair treatment, including being pulled into the principal’s office, cornered, and talked down to. After we hosted guest speakers, the principal tried to impose new rules on the fly. My father even had to help create a guest speaker form to protect me as a minor.”
Hunter-Lopez told members about other groups faced with no such scrutiny. The teen testified about a large booth installed at the campus labeled “Islam” in the cafeteria. At the booth, Hunter-Lopez says four adult women were posted as part of the group he identified in his testimony as “Why Islam.”
The student described the activities promoted at the school-sanctioned booth, telling members of the committee in his written testimony, “I looked over and saw multiple pamphlets spread out, one of which was explicitly titled ‘Understanding Shariah.’ This was very concerning to me and other students. They were also making Qurans available that include a ‘Shahada Card’ on the last page, instructing students how to convert: ‘To become a Muslim, one needs to make the following declaration: ‘I bear witness that there is no god worthy of worship except God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God’. This occurred openly during lunch, with administrators present who did nothing to intervene.”
Hunter-Lopez, who appeared in front of the committee at the behest of Representative Chip Roy (R-TX), told the committee about threats he received after speaking out on the group’s activities, telling the committee members, “I had people saying that they were going to be at my house waiting for me to get home and they were going to shoot me. I had people telling me to kill myself. A lot of different things. But I know nobody can proclaim anything over me because I wake up every morning with victory with Christ.”
Hunter-Lopez asserted in his testimony that the school district in Wylie is accommodating Islamic students in ways that are not offered to students of other religions, saying in his testimony, “The district now offers halal meals, a dedicated prayer room for Islamic observances, and has placed the Quran in at least one middle school library, while no Bible is offered. Conservative and Christian student groups have never received comparable accommodations or leeway.”
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Before his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @RandyClarkBBTX.