The concerns about “Islamic indoctrination” in Williamson County involve nearly every part of this process. In her October resolution, Burgos wrote that social-studies classes should cover all world religions equally, “except to the extent necessary to accurately reflect the Judeo-Christian heritage expressed by our Founding Fathers.” She argued that students should not be tested on their knowledge of religion, meaning that the state wouldn’t be able to measure whether middle-school students had met its learning standards for the religion components of sixth- and seventh-grade social studies. And during a school-board meeting, she questioned the textbook used by the county, alleging that it includes disproportionate coverage of Islam compared to other religions and omits historical facts about Muslims persecuting and converting others.

“In Williamson County, I can say, without any hesitation at all, that there is no slant toward Islam in our curriculum or in our teaching,” said Tim Gaddis, the county’s assistant superintendent of teaching, learning, and assessment, in an interview. He said the textbook does not mention Islam more than Christianity and Judaism, and all teachers are trained to talk about religion in historical and cultural terms, rather than spiritual or theological ones. But perhaps more importantly, there just isn’t a lot in the curriculum about religion, period.

“All of our middle schools … covered [the Islamic World] unit in a week this year,” Gaddis said. “It’s a survey course—you don’t get deeply into anything when you’re going from earliest civilizations all the way through the fall of Rome.”

Some of the concerns about Islam in Williamson County have been about the way individual teachers make assignments and lesson plans, allegedly framing Islamic beliefs as truth, rather than part of culture or history. This was the charge the ACLJ raised in Union Grove, Wisconsin. Gaddis said he’s seen rumors of those kinds of assignments floating around the Internet, but it’s simply not something that’s happening in the county. “We would know,” he said, referring to the county superintendent’s office. “We’re in Williamson County, Tennessee. Our population of our county is overwhelmingly Christian, and our teachers reflect that. So the concept that anyone is trying to convert someone to Islam through some means is not only not true; it’s difficult for me to understand where something like that could even come from.”

It’s a fascinating question: How has Islamic indoctrination become a point of controversy in a county that’s chock full of churches? On one level, the concerns are about substance, such as whether Islam is being taught accurately and in proportion to lessons about other religions. But these questions seem to hint at something deeper and darker: fear. Perhaps that fear is all the more powerful in a place like Williamson County because the religion is largely an abstraction. In the absence of Muslim neighbors, it’s easier to see those who practice Islam as fundamentally foreign, and to elide their faith with violence.