President Donald Trump reposted a video on Truth Social showing a group of kindergarteners at Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota, smiling onstage in caps and gowns. Beneath their blue graduation caps, many of the girls were wearing hijabs. The clip, originally shared on X by the right-wing account End Wokeness, was captioned: "Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab ... in kindergarten." Trump did not add any comment, letting the account's disbelief speak for itself.
Criticism From Muslim Advocates and Scholars
Gernaro Waheed, executive director of the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, called the post a dangerous escalation. "Minnesota’s Somali community has been a target of this administration for years, so this feels like an escalation, not an aberration. Our children aren’t safe when elected officials target them," Waheed told HuffPost. "Attacking children for how they dress in their own faith is an attack on their humanity and their right to simply exist as who they are."
Arsalan Iftikhar, former Georgetown University senior fellow and author of "Fear of a Muslim Planet," said Trump is "showing his Islamophobic true colors yet again. This time, he’s using images of young black Muslim girls with headscarves to rile up his anti-immigrant base in the most un-American way."
Political Reaction and Broader Context
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz responded directly on Monday: "The President of the United States is attacking a group of kindergartners because of the clothes they wore to school." The repost came just two months after two white supremacist teens attacked a mosque and private school in San Diego, killing three adults: a security guard, a teacher's husband, and an elder of the mosque.
Waheed warned that posts like this "embolden white nationalists to commit hate crimes as they see themselves as patriots and vigilantes." Robert C. Rowland, a professor of communication at the University of Kansas and author of "The Rhetoric of Donald Trump," noted: "Reposts of this variety would have been unthinkable for presidents of both parties in past years. His message is strikingly different from the message that President George W. Bush sent after 9/11, which made it clear that Islamic Americans were citizens just like everyone else."
Pattern of Commentless Reposts
Waheed believes Trump's lack of commentary is strategic, offering plausible deniability while endorsing the rhetoric. "Trump is not a bystander. He holds the highest elected office in a multifaith, pluralistic country. Amplifying the post is an endorsement." This pattern mirrors a February incident where Trump reposted an AI video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes; the White House initially defended it, then deleted it and blamed a staffer.
Ian Reifowitz, professor of historical studies at SUNY Empire State College, said Trump could claim the video was posted without comment for viewers to draw their own conclusions. "But the lack of additional commentary muddies the narrative, while the real, underlying message of fear spreads as intended."
Consistency With Trump's History on Islam
Reifowitz noted that given Trump's long history of hateful comments about Islam and Somali immigrants, "perhaps this post shouldn't come as a surprise. It tracks with Donald Trump's rhetoric on Islam." During his first term, Trump signed an executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days. In December, he told reporters of Somali immigrants: "They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country. I’ll be honest with you ... Somebody will say, ‘Oh, that’s not politically correct.’ I don’t care."
Rowland contrasted Trump's approach with Christian nationalism, noting that while the post suggests Islam has no place in America's schools, the same standard is not applied to Christianity. During Trump's presidency, measures requiring the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms and Bible reading in Texas schools have advanced, raising constitutional questions under the First Amendment.
