California School District Under Federal Investigation After Muslim Student Driven Out by Threats, Harassment, and Administrative Neglect

A California public school district is now under federal civil rights investigation after a Muslim teenage girl says administrators stood by while she was harassed, threatened with death, and effectively forced out of school athletics for asserting her religious boundaries.

Hadeel Hazameh, a student at Jurupa Valley High School, did not demand special treatment. She did not call for anyone’s exclusion. She asked for one thing: not to be compelled to undress in a locker room with a transgender athlete, citing her Islamic faith and modesty requirements.

What followed, she says, was a campaign of intimidation that the school failed—or refused—to stop.

According to Hazameh, classmates openly mocked her, insulted her religion, and escalated their attacks to death threats. The abuse was not hidden. It was visible, repeated, and known. Yet school officials allegedly allowed the hostile environment to persist, offering no meaningful protection while the student who reported the threats paid the price.

The outcome was predictable and damning: Hazameh quit volleyball. She quit track and field. She rushed to graduate early—not because she wanted to, but because remaining on campus had become untenable.

A Student Removed, While the System Remained Untouched

Hazameh’s experience raises a blunt question: when a student reports threats and harassment rooted in religion and sex, who is actually protected by school policy?

Not the student who left.

With the assistance of Advocates for Faith & Freedom, Hazameh and another student filed suit against Jurupa Unified School District, alleging violations of Title IX and religious discrimination. Their claim is not abstract. It is grounded in consequences: the loss of educational opportunity, athletic participation, and basic safety.

Federal authorities have now stepped in. The U.S. Department of Education has opened a civil rights investigation into the district, examining whether its policies—and its inaction—violated federal law by discriminating against female athletes and failing to protect students from harassment.

This case is one of at least 18 active federal investigations nationwide into school districts and colleges over similar policies.

Ideology Over Duty of Care

The Jurupa district was already under scrutiny following high-profile victories by a transgender athlete in girls’ track-and-field events, a controversy that drew national attention, forfeited games, and political commentary from then-President Donald Trump.

But Hazameh’s case shifts the focus from competition to something more fundamental: whether schools are abandoning their duty of care to students who dissent from prevailing ideology.

Title IX does not permit schools to sacrifice one student’s safety to avoid controversy. Civil rights law does not allow administrators to ignore death threats because responding would be politically inconvenient.

Yet that is precisely what Hazameh alleges happened.

Federal Law, Not Optional Guidelines

In February 2025, the Trump administration issued an executive order directing federal agencies to interpret Title IX as prohibiting transgender participation in female sports categories and authorizing the withholding of federal funds from noncompliant institutions.

Whether one agrees with that policy or not is beside the point. Schools are not permitted to selectively enforce civil rights protections—nor are they allowed to punish religious students by neglect.

If Hazameh’s allegations are substantiated, the district’s failure would represent more than poor judgment. It would constitute a civil rights violation carried out through indifference.

The Message Sent to Students

The message Hazameh says she received was unmistakable: speak up, and you will be isolated; assert your faith, and you will be removed; endure threats quietly, or leave.

She left.

As federal investigators now review the district’s actions, the case stands as a test of whether public schools still recognize religious freedom and female student protections as enforceable rights—or as obstacles to be managed away.

For Hazameh, the cost has already been paid. The question now is whether the system that failed her will be held accountable.