ADL’s Jean and Jerry Moore Southwest Area Counsel Cheryl Drazin wrote a letter to Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller to express disappointment in the image shared on his Facebook page recently, which showed a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb and said, “It’s time we made peace with the Muslim World.”

ADL noted that the rhetoric promoted by the picture was inflammatory and portrayed an unfair and misguided accusation against members of the Muslim community. ADL also noted that members of Texas’ executive branch have an essential role to play in raising legitimate concerns about threats to our security from international terrorists groups and those efforts should not be tainted by the kind of stereotyping and prejudice that the image on Miller’s Facebook wall suggested.  We asked him to publicly renounce the picture and the repugnant message it conveyed.  

ADL also wrote to Kate Adams, Principal of HISD’s Arabic Immersion Magnet School, to condemn the recent protest outside the school by demonstrators carrying placards with hateful and bigoted language.  The protestors equated the school’s efforts to teach young children Arabic with terrorism.  ADL noted that bigotry and hateful rhetoric have no place in our community and that ADL supports language immersion schools.