The fate of a K–12 Islamic school is now in limbo after Hoover’s planning and zoning commission rejected its relocation plan following a wave of public opposition.
That opposition erupted during a public meeting to discuss the school’s application.
The question surrounding the Islamic Academy of Alabama also reopened an old debate over religious tolerance, who is welcomed and who has the right to locate in the major Birmingham suburb.
“We’re still trying to evaluate if there’s a viable path forward for us,” said attorney Lucas Gambino, speaking on behalf of the school.
The Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission Monday evening unanimously denied the request from the Islamic Academy of Alabama to rezone a commercial building off Highway 119 to convert it into a school. A final vote from the city council is expected in January.
While the commission asked questions about traffic, land use and long-term planning, resident criticism of the religious nature of the school - and who would use it - punctuated the hearing.
What began as a zoning discussion quickly turned into a forum for speakers to voice their disdain for Islam and the people who practice it.
“Unfortunately, many objections raised were unrelated to zoning criteria and instead reflected harmful stereotypes and conspiracy theories about Muslims and Islamic institutions,” school administrator Stacy Abdein told AL.com. “These inaccurate remarks go against the principles of fairness, inclusion, and religious freedom that guide our community and our country.”
The school, which has existed for nearly 30 years, sought to relocate from its current facility in Homewood to a larger, more modern building in a Hoover office park. The property is currently zoned “Planned Office” and the applicants sought to change it to “Conditional Use” to allow for educational use.
“The primary motivation is to provide space and elbow room for our existing students,” Gambino said. “It’s aesthetics as well as space. But space is the primary thing.”
The school has about 260 students.
The zoning commission said no, following city recommendations that included questions about traffic and the long-term use plan for the area which is desired to bring tech companies.
“Our school is built on a strong commitment to education and community,” Abdein added. “The negative characterizations of our school, students, and community are rooted in false assumptions, misinformation, and fear.”
Responding to the tenor of the meeting, Hoover Mayor Nick Derzis told AL.com the city’s staff and zoning officials made their recommendations based on facts surrounding the application and nothing else.
“The city of Hoover is committed to applying our planning and zoning regulations fairly, consistently, and in accordance with the law,” Derzis said in a statement.
“The recent decision by the Planning and Zoning Commission regarding the proposed Muslim school and community center on Corporate Drive was based solely on the completeness of the application and the requirements outlined in our city code,” he said.
Derzis said city staff began reviewing the school’s proposal in early summer, yet questions about long-term land use, occupancy details and traffic impacts “remained insufficiently addressed.”
He rejected the idea that religion played any role in the outcome.
“Any suggestion that the decision was influenced by the religious affiliation of the applicant is simply incorrect,” he said in the statement. “Hoover is a diverse and welcoming community, and our city has been home to an Islamic mosque for more than a decade without issue. We value all faiths and all residents, and we remain committed to ensuring that every application is reviewed impartially and on its merits.”
But during Monday’s meeting, resident comments told a different story. Attendees lined the walls holding signs opposing the project and offered a host of reasons they did not want the K-12 school and community center in Hoover — many of them focused squarely on who the school serves.
“You’re going to have real problems with this community, I’m just telling you now,” Hoover resident Bruce Davis said to the commission. “There’s going to be an influx of other people that are going to create a problem for this community and we might as well just face it.”
A group sitting in the back held homemade posters illustrating their disapproval.
“Stop the 100-year plan,” read one sign referring to a theory of a move to transform the U.S. into a Muslim society.
“Give an inch – Dearborn Michigan” another read, referring to a community with a large Muslim population and Arab American-majority city leadership.
Davis said the presence of the school in Hoover would also deter desired business development in the area.
One speaker drew the loudest applause as she took the lectern to read a prepared statement that castigated Muslims, whom she accused of a “long-term cultural takeover” in Britain.
The rhetoric has not been confined to Hoover. The day after the hearing, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville appeared on right-wing conspiracy podcast Infowars, to blast the school’s application, saying there was no room for Muslims in Alabama and called the religion a cult.
“Muslim communities are moving everywhere,” Tuberville told host Breanna Morello. “In every state, they’re building Mosques, they’re having these five prayers a day, they’re pushing this cult on everybody across this country.”
Tuberville called the school a tool to influence young people and convert them to Islam.
“In the future, in a year, I’ll be the governor, and I’ll be damned if we’re going to do that in the state of Alabama,” he said. “We’re going to protect the people of Alabama, we’re going to protect our constitution. We’re going to protect our state and we’re going to protect our country.”
This isn’t the first time there’s been controversy in Hoover over the application of a Muslim facility.
In 2007, an Ismaili Muslim group withdrew its plans for a zoning exception in Hoover and opened a Jamatkhana or worship center in an office park just off West Oxmoor Road in Homewood after their application was denied. At that time, worship centers required city approval as a conditional use of the property because it was zoned as a neighborhood shopping district.
Hoover has a mosque within its city limits, which opened in 2007 after receiving city approval to convert a former church on Hackberry Lane. That group is unaffiliated with the Ismaili Muslims who were denied.
Tension over proposals similar to Hoover are common throughout the country right now, said Steven Ramey, professor and chairman of religious studies at the University of Alabama.
“What is often difficult is how to parse what is a legitimate traffic concern versus what is the fear of a different group,” said Ramey, who studies migration and disputes involving cultural subgroups within larger communities.
“Some of the signs reported there are clearly not about traffic. Sometimes traffic becomes the legal way to deny something when the real motive is something else, but I can’t discern what somebody’s motive is for why they voted the way they did.”
Challenging a zoning denial usually requires money and a lengthy delay in a project.
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, National Deputy Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said he is well familiar with government delays for Muslim-led projects with common excuses.
“You will either see outright bigotry that’s expressed about the project or dishonest concerns about traffic and parking that are not legitimate,” Mitchell said.
“City councils and county commissions must absolutely make their decisions solely based on the merits of a project, not the faith identity of the project itself,” he said.
While he is not affiliated with the Hoover proposal, Mitchell, who is also a lawyer, said Muslim groups around the country have successfully sued communities to proceed with their projects.
“We hope situations don’t rise to that level,” Mitchell said. “We want people to be treated fairly and to avoid conflict, but nationwide, we have seen a very consistent pattern of Mosques and Islamic school projects facing delays or denials based on bigotry.”
Mitchell said that references to Dearborn, Michigan by those who oppose Muslim projects, are part of a deliberate smear campaign “to distract the public with a Muslim boogeyman.”
“We’ve seen a very noticeable surge of anti-Muslim rhetoric relating to Dearborn and other Muslim communities across the country,” he added.
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