Austin Wood
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Muslim and interfaith organizers gathered Thursday to call for the reinstatement of a Fort Worth ISD principal who was reassigned after right-wing social media backlash.
FWISD announced Shayma Alzubi as the new principal of Western Hills High School on social media earlier this week. Alzubi, who previously served as assistant principal at Southwest High School, was pictured wearing a hijab, a traditional Muslim headscarf.
The post gained traction in right-wing circles after influencers including Libs of TikTok shared posts from Alzubi’s Facebook showing support for the Palestinian people, immigrants and Black Lives Matter. Alzubi also shared a post from another account in January of this year that clarifies the religious context of sharia law and its role in guiding the spiritual life of Muslims in the U.S. The post was made at a time when conservative lawmakers are stoking largely unfounded fears of the “Islamification of Texas” and so-called “sharia courts.”
The district announced Tuesday that it had reassigned Alzubi pending an investigation. In a statement, a FWISD spokesperson said that “it was determined that the posts may not align with the district’s social media policy and expectations for staff.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott appeared on Fox News Wednesday and supported the district’s decision. Abbott has ramped up rhetoric against Muslim organizations over the past year and advocated for a ban on “sharia cities” while targeting the East Plano Islamic Center’s planned mixed-use development in Collin County.
“The education agency made it very clear that behavior like this, comments like this, a misalignment with Texas values, as well as Texas law, are unacceptable, and people like this cannot be a principal,” Abbott said on air.
‘A vicious campaign of hate’
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group that Abbott designated a terrorist organization in November, held a press conference Thursday at the Islamic Unity Center in eastern Fort Worth alongside interfaith leaders and activists.
Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of CAIR-DFW, said the backlash against Alzubi was indicative of growingly Islamophobic sentiments in the area.
“I wish I could say this happened in a vacuum, but it didn’t,” Carroll said. “In recent months, Texas Muslims have been targeted by a vicious campaign of hate by some political leaders in the state.”
He also said that the group recorded more instances of Muslim Americans being harassed in 2025 than in any year since 1996, when the organization began tracking incidents. CAIR recorded 8,683 instances of harassment against Muslims nationwide last year, according to the group’s annual civil rights report.
The group is exploring legal action to compel Alzubi’s reinstatement, Carroll said, who added that the rhetoric against Muslims paralleled tactics used against civil rights organizers in the 1960s.
“Unfortunately, I’ve seen all this before, the same language, the same lame excuses, the same hate and vitriol, and the same responses given by government institutions to exclude qualified, upstanding teachers like Ms. Shayma Alzubi,” Carroll said. “Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to all call for the immediate reinstatement of Ms. Shayma Alzubi.”
Noor Wadi, an attorney and member of the Faith Power Alliance, called on the district to publicly share the social media policies Alzubi allegedly violated.
“This, make no mistake, this all began because Shayma Alzubi is a visibly Muslim woman with a Palestinian name,” Wadi said. “If she did not cover her hair in her staff picture and in her daily life, if her last name was not Alzubi, she would be onboarding this week as the principal of Western Hills. But instead, we are here.”
According to the Fort Worth ISD employee handbook, if an employee’s “use of electronic media interferes with the employee’s ability to effectively perform his or her job duties, the employee is subject to disciplinary action.” The handbook does not reference political or religious statements, and Wadi said Alzubi’s posts were protected First Amendment speech.
Wadi also said Alzubi was not at the conference due to safety concerns.
Conservative social media backlash recently led to the cancellation of a planned holiday celebration at a Grand Prairie water park. The city announced it would cancel the event, which had been advertised on a flyer as “Muslim Only,” after Abbott threatened to withhold over $500,000 in state funding.
At the conference, Muhammad Abdullah, a Dallas-based Imam who organized the event, said he hadn’t intended to exclude anyone and pointed out that another flyer advertising the event had been posted with the words “all are welcome.”
“It isn’t about CAIR being designated as a terrorist organ,” Abdullah said at the conference. “It isn’t about our Eid event. It isn’t about this sister and her post. It’s the fact that you can’t be Muslim in America. That’s what they want.
Deb Armintor, a University of North Texas professor and former Denton City Council member, represented Jewish Voices for Peace at the conference. She said the Christian nationalist backlash against Alzubi was hypocritical, especially in light of conservatives’ recent enthusiasm for placing the Ten Commandments in public schools.
“Their false smear campaign against Principal Alzubi also happened to have violated the Ninth Commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness, from the famous Ten Commandments that they claimed to revere,” Armintor said. “These same liars and hate mongers have robbed Western Hills High School students and families of their highly qualified newly appointed principal, which, for anyone keeping track, violates the Eight Commandment — thou shalt not steal.”
A district under state control
Fort Worth ISD is currently under the control of a state-appointed board of directors after TEA Commissioner announced a conservatorship in October following years of unsatisfactory ratings. The board and Superintendent Peter Licata, who assumed control in March, have pursued staff reductions and campus closures in the past few months.
Sabrina Ball, a member of Fort Worth ISD 4 All, has been vocal at board meetings since the takeover began and appeared at the conference in support of Alzubi. Ball demanded the reinstatement of Alzubi and an end to state control. She also said the social media-driven reassignment will likely create a chilling effect throughout the district.
“This is not just about one principal, this is about our school system and what it is becoming under this state takeover,” she said. “Who gets protected? Who gets pushed out when extremists attack? Because every educator in this district is watching what happens here.”
One of those educators, Ale Checka, also spoke at the conference. Checka has been vocal in her criticism of FWISD under state control and testified that she “can’t do my job there” to the Texas House Committee on Public Education in May.
“I have spent so much of my career in a place where you don’t get fired for being bad at your job,” Checka said Thursday. “You don’t get fired because you were bad at leading teachers. You don’t get fired because you had bad academics. You evidently got fired because professional internet cranks are now our HR.”
Checka teaches at Southwest High and previously worked under Alzubi. She said she knew nothing about Alzubi’s religious and political beliefs before this week because “it’s none of my business.” since “we work in a public school.” Checka also called Alzubi an effective educator who excels at reaching disinterested students.
“What kids are learning from this is that an adult that they see every day, who did all the things, who has professional excellence, who holds herself to a high standard, who holds others to a high standard, who has put in the work in her life for degrees, for accomplishing whatever — that it doesn’t matter.” she said. “If somebody decides that what your personal faith is outside of the job, they don’t like it, then none of that matters.”
