TLDR: The incident at Wylie East High School was not appropriate because the outside group did not follow district approval protocols, and public schools must enforce neutral policies consistently. At the same time, the Constitution requires equal protection for private religious expression. If a school opens access to outside groups or student organizations, it cannot single out a particular religion for exclusion.

More broadly, while individual religious practice is protected under the First Amendment, no religious legal system, including Sharia, can be established as governing law in the United States. The Constitution remains supreme, and any attempt to integrate Sharia law into U.S. legal framework in any level of government would be dangerous and unconstitutional. 

A few weeks ago, a video circulated online showing four Muslim women distributing Qurans and hijabs at Wylie East High School in Wylie, Texas. The women were affiliated with an outreach group called “Why Islam?” and according to district officials, the group was not approved in advance and school protocols were not followed.

A student questioned why a religious organization had been permitted to distribute materials on campus.

For Christians concerned about religious liberty, the incident raises a serious question: When public schools allow religious expression, what are the constitutional boundaries? Further, how should believers respond when that expression involves Islam?

To answer those questions, we’ll begin by looking at the Constitution.

The First Amendment Framework

The First Amendment contains two religion clauses: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Courts have spent decades interpreting how those clauses apply to public schools.

In Engel v. Vitale (1962), the Supreme Court held that state-composed, government-sponsored prayer in public schools violates the Establishment Clause. A year later, in Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), the Court struck down school-sponsored Bible readings.

At the same time, the Court has consistently protected voluntary, private religious expression. In Widmar v. Vincent (1981), the Court held that a public university could not exclude a Christian student group from meeting on campus when other student groups were allowed to meet. Congress reinforced this principle in the federal Equal Access Act (1984), which requires public secondary schools that allow non-curricular student groups to meet to provide equal access to religious groups.

The Supreme Court affirmed this constitutional interpretation in Board of Education v. Mergens (1990), upholding students’ right to form a Bible club under the Equal Access Act. More recently, in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022), the Court ruled that a public high school football coach’s quiet, personal prayer on the field was protected under the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses.

These cases establish a consistent rule: Government may not sponsor religion. Government also may not discriminate against private religious expression when it opens a forum to others.

While the group’s operations were unapproved, had Wylie East High School allowed the “Why Islam?” group access under a neutral, content-based policy that permits outside organizations or student groups to distribute materials, the Constitution might require equal treatment. A school that permits secular clubs, political groups, or Christian ministries access cannot single out Islam for exclusion. Equal access cuts both ways.

Christians who care about religious liberty should understand this clearly. The same doctrine that protects a Muslim outreach table protects a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting or a student-led Bible study.

Islam, Sharia and the Constitutional Question

That said, public concern extends far beyond campus access and into deeper legal questions about Sharia law. Those concerns deserve careful analysis.

Sharia, in Islamic jurisprudence, refers broadly to a moral and legal framework derived from the Quran, the Hadith (sayings of Muhammad), and centuries of scholarly interpretation. Muslim scholars disagree significantly on how Sharia should function in modern societies. In the United States, many Muslim Americans practice their faith within the bounds of constitutional law, applying religious principles to personal conduct such as prayer, dietary rules, and family life.

The Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, found in Article VI, establishes that the Constitution and federal law are the supreme law of the land. According to the clause, no religious code — Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or otherwise — can displace it in civil governance, despite what our founding fathers actually might have wanted.

The legal debate intensifies when Sharia is treated as a state-enforced legal system. In several majority-Muslim countries, elements of Sharia are incorporated into civil law, sometimes including anti-Islam blasphemy statutes, restrictions on religious conversion, or subhuman treatment of women and religious minorities. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom have documented cases in countries like Iran and Pakistan where blasphemy laws have led to imprisonment, violence and even brutal killings.

Radical Islamist movements such as ISIS and al-Qaeda have relied on specific Quranic passages to justify violent theocratic governance. Verses such as Surah 9:29 and Surah 47:4, among a dozen others, have been cited by extremist groups in support of coercive rule and violence against perceived enemies. 

“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued,” reads Surah 9:29.

 

“When you meet the unbelievers (in battle), smite their necks until you have crushed them, then bind your captives firmly; thereafter (you are entitled to) set them free, either by an act of grace, or against ransom, until the war ends. That is for you to do,” reads Surah 47:4.

 

Scholars of Islamic studies, including researchers at institutions like Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, note that mainstream Muslim scholarship often rejects those militant interpretations and situates such verses in historical wartime contexts.

It’s true that Islam as practiced by millions of American Muslims operates within a constitutional system that guarantees freedom of religion. However, political Islamism, which seeks to replace constitutional governance with militant Sharia rule, stands in direct conflict with the First Amendment and the Supremacy Clause.

American law already contains guardrails. Courts have repeatedly held that private arbitration agreements, including religious arbitration, cannot override fundamental constitutional rights. Civil courts remain the final authority. No parallel legal system can supersede constitutional protections.

From a Christian constitutional perspective, the defense of religious liberty must be principled. Scripture teaches that government has a limited role. Jesus’ statement in Matthew 22:21, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” affirms a distinction between civil authority and spiritual allegiance.

The early Baptists understood this distinction well. Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association described a “wall of separation between Church & State,” a phrase later adopted by the Court. Jefferson’s context reflected concern that government power would intrude upon the church. The American tradition developed around protecting the free exercise of religion while preventing state establishment.

That tradition protects Christians. It also protects Muslims, Jews, and others.

It does not protect the establishment of Islamic military state under Sharia law.

When a public school allows religious distribution under neutral policies, equal treatment is supposed to follow, regardless of religion. However, in the case study of Wylie East High School, the Islamic group was not approved and did not operate through proper channels, so their actions should not be condoned.

When any religious doctrine seeks enforcement through state power in ways that conflict with constitutional rights, courts must intervene. Sharia law should not creep into federal or local law.

The group at Wylie East High School highlights the tension many believers feel in a pluralistic society. The answer is not selective liberty. It is constitutional consistency.

Religious freedom remains the first liberty in the Bill of Rights. Its durability depends on applying it evenly and guarding the constitutional structure that prevents any faith from becoming a coercive arm of the state.

Feature image: David Ball, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons