A former Marine is asking a judge to lift a no-trespass order ahead of his daughter’s graduation after her high school reportedly banned him from campus for objecting to classroom lessons about Islam.

“She’s in the final semester of her senior year, and as it stands right now, she’s going to have to go through that life experience without her dad there,” said Kate Oliveri, a lawyer from the Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center who is representing John Kevin Wood and his family, The Washington Post reported.

The dispute stems from an October 2014 classroom assignment at La Plata High School in Charles County, Maryland. Mr. Wood’s daughter, a then-junior, was reportedly asked in her World History class to memorize the Five Pillars of Islam and recite the shahada: the Muslim statement of faith that declares, “There is no God but Allah.”

She had been taught, according to school papers submitted to federal court, that most Muslims’ faith is “stronger than the average Christian,” The Post reported.

Mr. Wood called the assignment an assault on his family’s Christian faith. He said that when he called the school to complain and ask for his daughter to be given a different assignment, school officials issued a no-trespass order against him and he has not been allowed on campus since.

The order said Mr. Wood “made verbal threats against the school,” but Mr. Wood insisted he only threatened to take his concerns to the media and hire a lawyer, The Post reported.

He and his wife, Melissa, are now suing the Charles County school system for violating their daughter’s civil and constitutional rights.

“The First Amendment prohibits the promotion of the religion of Islam over other faiths, such as Christianity or Judaism, in our public schools,” says the complaint, filed in U.S District Court in Maryland, The Post reported.

Mr. Wood’s daughter is set to graduate on June 4.

Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters

Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.