President Trump announces protection of prayer in public schools
President Trump announced new upcoming guidelines to protect prayer in public schools.
- Carrie Prejean Boller was removed from the Religious Freedom Committee after a Feb. 9 hearing in which she criticized Israel and rejected the idea that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism.
- She said there was a months-long “witch hunt” to remove her from the committee because of her public comments about Israel that were inconsistent with the Trump administration’s positions.
- Prejean Boller said the commission’s chair, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, at one point told her, “Your job on this commission is to protect the president,” and that her social media posts failed to do that.
A member of President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Committee said she was fired for her comments about Israel and for not fully supporting the president, an allegation that led House Republicans to call for a congressional investigation.
Controversy surrounding Carrie Prejean Boller has been swirling for months, including after a February committee hearing on anti-Semitism. But her firing has been brought back into the spotlight in recent days after she posted an open letter to Trump on social media.
Prejean Boller’s March 12
The thread also included an open letter to Trump outlining what it called a month-long “witch hunt” against Trump for speaking out about Palestinian suffering while on the committee.
The commission was established at the start of President Trump’s second term and is designed to “protect and advance America’s founding principles of religious freedom,” according to the White House.
In an interview with USA TODAY, Prejean Boller said the committee’s chairman, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, once told him, “Your job on this committee is to protect the president.”
She accused Patrick of telling her to refrain from posting on social media about the ongoing conflict in Gaza. In the same conversation, she said the Rev. Paula White, director and senior adviser of the White House Office of Faith, asked her to post her remarks before posting them on social media.
USA TODAY has reached out to the White House, the Department of Justice, which oversees the Committee on Religious Freedom, and Patrick’s and White’s respective offices for comment.
Prejean Bolaire, a Catholic, described the actions against him as a “cynical” violation of his religious freedom and said he was considering his legal options.
“This all started because, as Christians, we could not deny what we witnessed in Gaza,” she said.
On March 13, Representative Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) sent a letter to the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees asking them to reconsider the circumstances surrounding Prejean Boller’s termination. The letter outlined Prejean-Bollaire’s arguments and asked him to determine whether the committee’s actions complied with the Federal Advisory Committees Act, which requires such bodies to have a balance of viewpoints.
“If the above account is accurate, and the motive for Mrs. Boller’s removal was to refrain from expressing religious views or asking questions reflecting those views, then such actions raise concerns that the federal advisory body charged with upholding religious freedom has engaged in opinion discrimination or retaliation for protected speech,” Massey wrote.
Neither committee responded to USA TODAY’s inquiries about whether they had made a decision on the requests or were considering them.
In February, groups representing various religious traditions sued the Trump administration, accusing the Religious Freedom Commission of violating the Federal Advisory Commission Act, alleging it lacks religious and ideological diversity.
The commission includes Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish members, but no Muslims or members of other minority religious groups. The commission’s advisory committee of lay leaders had three Muslims on it until Samira Mansi, who advocated for a group of Maryland parents seeking the right to prevent children from reading books with LGBTQ characters in public schools, resigned on March 12, in part due to the ouster of Prejean Boller.
Clashes with committee members over Israel
Prejean Boller and Munshi told USA TODAY that the committee’s perceived lack of diversity is “concerning.” But Prejean Boller said she is committed to defending people of faith, regardless of their religious tradition.
Munshi described his decision to join the committee as a “choice to either participate or not.”
Prejean Boller said White House Office of Presidential Personnel Director Mary Sprowls asked him to resign in August, citing concerns about Patrick and White’s criticism of Israel.
She said she was “truly shocked” by the request and refused to resign.
It comes about a week after she said she had a conversation with Mr. Patrick and Mr. White in which she said she was told to protect Mr. Trump and said her public comments about Israel were “contrary to” the administration’s position.
“And he (Patrick) said, ‘So, Carey, from now until the end of your term, you need to stay off social media,'” Prejean Boller said in an interview with USA TODAY.
She pushed back against the directive, saying she uses her social media accounts to discuss issues that are important to her as a person of faith.
In response, Prejean-Boller said White asked her to “make sure I do everything so I can get approval” before posting on social media.
The situation culminated in the Commission’s hearing on anti-Semitism on February 9, during which Prejean Boller rejected the idea that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism. During her speech, she used abusive language, and the audience was temporarily removed from the audience.
Patrick announced on February 11 that Prejean-Bollaire had been removed from the committee, saying that no member “has the right to hijack public hearings on any issue for personal and political agendas.”
He said the committee has “done an outstanding job” in previous hearings, touching on topics such as religious freedom in public education and the Trump administration’s belief that former President Joe Biden’s administration weaponized laws against religious Americans.
“The president respects all faiths,” Patrick said. “He believes that all Americans are entitled to the great heritage given to us by our Founding Fathers in the First Amendment.”
He also said it was his decision to fire her, but Prejean Boller responded with an X post of his own, saying he did not have the authority to take such an action.
“As the name suggests, this is President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, not yours,” she wrote.
In an interview with USA TODAY, Prejean Boller rejected the idea that she “hijacked” the hearing and said she believed other commissioners had political motives.
“Those who bless (Israeli Prime Minister) Bibi Netanyahu will be blessed, that is their doctrine… They live by it,” she said.
Prejean Boller: “I don’t know you” tells Trump
Prejean Boller said he is “disappointed” in President Trump, both in his lack of direct communication about his removal from the committee and the fact that he was removed in the first place.
The relationship between the two dates back about 20 years.
President Trump defended her during the 2009 Miss USA pageant when she caused controversy by saying that “marriage should be between a man and a woman.” She explained that she has been an avid supporter of Trump throughout her political career, proudly wearing MAGA gear and attending both inauguration ceremonies.
“I don’t even recognize you now,” she wrote in an open letter to the president, who also criticized the president for increasing the U.S. military presence in the Middle East despite declaring himself a “president of peace.”
“He’s betrayed himself, he’s betrayed MAGA, he’s betrayed me, and he’s betrayed the millions of people who voted for him,” Prejean Boller told USA TODAY. “I don’t know how he sleeps at night.”
Lack of confidence in the committee’s future activities
Prejean Boller said he was “appreciated” by the effort to get Parliament to consider Massey’s removal from the committee and hoped it would bear fruit.
Meanwhile, she announced on March 16 that she will direct and produce a documentary, Mandated by Faith, about nurses who were fired for refusing to take the coronavirus vaccine for religious reasons.
As for the report on the state of religious freedom that the commission is expected to produce in the coming months, neither Prejean-Bollaire nor Munshi expressed confidence in its final findings.
“I cannot believe that this commission is legitimate at all,” Prejean Boller said. “I think it was very one-sided and very biased.”
In a March 17 post, she called for what she called a “fake committee” to be “shut down.”
Munshi similarly said the remaining committee members are “more interested in protecting the image of this administration” than in protecting everyone’s religious freedom.
Prejean Boller will receive the Catholic Champion Award from Catholics for Catholics, a social service organization in Washington, D.C., on March 19th. The organization is one of the groups participating in President Trump’s “America Plays” initiative.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations praised both Prejean Boller and Munshi for their courage in the face of what it saw as political pressure by the Commission on Religious Freedom.
“The Trump administration repeatedly pays lip service to free speech and religious freedom, while persistently seeking to denigrate and silence Americans, particularly American Muslims, and even American Catholics like Carrie Prejean Boller, who dare to criticize foreign governments,” the council’s March 13 statement said. “This committee is now clearly aimed at protecting Israel from criticism, not protecting the religious freedom of Americans.”
The Committee on Religious Liberty is scheduled to hold an “apex hearing to discuss the past, present, and future of religious freedom in America” on April 13 in Washington, D.C.
Breanna Frank is USA TODAY’s First Amendment Reporting Fellow. Please contact bjfrank@usatoday.com..
USA TODAY’s coverage of First Amendment issues is funded by the Freedom Forum in collaboration with our journalism funding partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
