A federal civil rights lawsuit filed Thursday accuses the city of Dearborn, Michigan, and its Democratic mayor of pouring thousands of taxpayer dollars into public Ramadan celebrations while refusing to extend the same recognition to Christian and Jewish holidays, then retaliating against the resident who asked for equal treatment.
The suit, brought by the American Freedom Law Center on behalf of Dearborn resident and Federalist journalist Margot Cleveland, names Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and the city as defendants. It alleges violations of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and free-speech protections, along with the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.
The core claim is simple: Dearborn used public funds and public property to promote one faith’s observances while stonewalling a citizen who politely requested the same courtesy for Easter, Passover, and other holy days. If the allegations hold up, the case could become a landmark test of whether local governments can play favorites with religion, and whether they can punish residents who object.
The timeline laid out in the lawsuit, as reported by Fox News Digital, begins in spring 2025. Cleveland noticed “Ramadan Kareem” banners and large crescent-moon displays appearing across the city, on streets, in parks, and along Michigan Avenue, Dearborn’s main thoroughfare. The Dearborn Police Department even sold Ramadan-themed T-shirts.
Cleveland filed a Freedom of Information Act request. The records that came back showed the city had spent $1,500 on the Ramadan banners and $5,000 on the crescent-moon display, $6,500 in taxpayer money directed at celebrating a single religion’s holiday season.
Cleveland then emailed city officials. She did not demand the Ramadan displays come down. She asked for equal treatment.
In her own words from that correspondence: “I much prefer to ensure equality of faith traditions, as opposed to a challenge to the display.”
The city’s response, according to the lawsuit, was silence.
Rather than address Cleveland’s request, the city doubled down. In February 2026, Dearborn expanded its Ramadan displays, commissioning crescent-and-star lights for municipal streetlights across the city. Hammoud framed the move in public terms that the lawsuit treats as confirmation of the constitutional problem.
“This initiative reflects who we are as a city.”
That statement from the mayor raises an obvious question: If publicly funded religious displays “reflect who we are as a city,” what does the city’s refusal to recognize Easter or Passover say to its Christian and Jewish residents?
Dearborn recorded a population of 109,976 in the 2020 Census. Just over 54 percent of residents reported Middle Eastern or North African ancestry, and an online directory lists ten mosques within city limits. None of that demographic reality changes the constitutional equation. The Establishment Clause does not contain a majority-rules exception.
The pattern here is not unlike the case of a Michigan hospital that paid $410,000 to settle claims it fired a physician assistant over religious objections, institutions that wield public authority or public funds and then treat religious believers as second-class citizens when those believers ask for equal standing.
The lawsuit draws a direct line between the city’s treatment of Cleveland and a separate confrontation involving Mayor Hammoud and a local Christian pastor named Ted Barham. In September 2025, Barham raised concerns at a Dearborn City Council meeting over the city’s decision to rename a street after Usama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News.
Hammoud’s response to Barham, captured in the exchange, went far beyond a policy disagreement. The mayor told the pastor:
“And although you live here, I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here. And the day you move out of the city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of the city… because you are not somebody who believes in coexistence.”
Hammoud also called Barham a “bigot” and an “Islamophobe,” according to the account in the lawsuit.
The New York Post reported that Hammoud declined to apologize for those remarks at a follow-up council meeting. His mayoral opponent, Nagi Almudhegi, condemned the comments as “uncalled for, classless, unprofessional and just plain wrong.” At that same meeting, Garden City resident Shane Rife directly challenged Hammoud: “Where is your allegiance? Is your allegiance to the United States or is your allegiance to Hezbollah?”
The question was not random. Siblani, the man honored with the street renaming, has a documented history of statements sympathetic to Hamas and Hezbollah. Fox News reported that Siblani once said in 2006, “If the FBI wants to come after those who support the resistance done by Hezbollah, then they better bring a fleet of buses. I, for one, would be willing to go to jail.” Hammoud had appeared at a rally where Siblani praised Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a “hero.”
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer stayed silent for days after the Barham incident despite repeated attempts by Fox News Digital to reach her office.
The lawsuit goes beyond the holiday-display spending. It alleges the city retaliated against Cleveland after she continued pressing for equal treatment.
In April, the year is not specified in the filing’s description but context points to 2026, Cleveland was allegedly told she could attend a community meeting as a resident but not as a journalist. She pushed back, describing herself as “a concerned resident who was ignored when I asked for the City to treat Christians and Jews equally.”
At that same meeting, Hammoud allegedly made a comment about residents who criticize the city on social media to monetize their posts, a remark the lawsuit characterizes as directed at Cleveland given her work at The Federalist.
AFLC co-founder and senior counsel Robert J. Muise framed the pattern bluntly in a statement:
“The City of Dearborn spent taxpayer money to light up its streets and parks for Ramadan while stonewalling a resident who simply asked that Easter, Passover, and other Christian and Jewish holy days be treated the same way. That is a straightforward Establishment Clause violation, and the retaliation our client faced for speaking up about it only compounds the constitutional harm.”
Muise told Fox News Digital: “Despite the repeated requests, they treated her as if she were an outsider and not a full member of the political community.”
The case echoes a broader national pattern in which citizens who raise religious-liberty concerns find themselves on the receiving end of institutional hostility. A Florida attorney general recently subpoenaed Major League Baseball over warnings issued to Christian players who wrote Bible verses on their caps during Pride Night, another instance of a public or quasi-public institution treating religious expression as a problem to manage rather than a right to protect.
Attorney David Yerushalmi, also representing Cleveland, put the legal argument in sharp terms:
“What makes this case especially troubling is that City officials, up to and including the Mayor, responded to a citizen’s respectful request for equal treatment with silence, stonewalling, and outright hostility, including the Mayor’s own words telling a Christian resident he is ‘not welcome’ in his own city. Our client is simply asking the City to treat Christians and Jews as equal citizens.”
The National Review noted that the lawsuit alleges city officials used public funds and city property to celebrate Ramadan while denying similar requests for Christian and Jewish holiday recognition, and then retaliated against the resident who spoke out.
Hammoud, the first Muslim and Arab American to lead Dearborn, was first elected in November 2021. The lawsuit does not challenge his right to practice his faith or the city’s diverse character. It challenges the use of government power and public money to elevate one religion above others, exactly the kind of favoritism the Establishment Clause was written to prevent.
The case also carries political weight beyond Dearborn. Michigan’s 2026 U.S. Senate race features Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, who is Muslim and the son of Egyptian immigrants, against Republican nominee Mike Rogers. El-Sayed has faced scrutiny over his association with streamer Hasan Piker, who said the U.S. was worse than al Qaeda “pound for pound, as far as the number of deaths.” The broader question of how Michigan’s political leaders handle religious and cultural fault lines is not going away.
The pattern of institutions dismissing citizens who demand transparency and equal treatment extends well beyond Michigan. A North Carolina father recently sued his school district after officials refused to disclose their bathroom policy for his daughter, another case where a parent who asked straightforward questions got stonewalled by the people his tax dollars pay.
Several questions hang over the case. The specific court and case number have not been publicly identified. The damages or remedies Cleveland is seeking have not been disclosed. And it remains unclear whether the city responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment, or whether Hammoud’s office plans to fight the suit or settle.
What is clear from the record is the sequence: a resident saw her city spend thousands on one religion’s holiday displays, asked politely for equal treatment, got ignored, watched the city expand those displays, and then faced retaliation when she kept pressing. Meanwhile, the mayor told a Christian pastor he was “not welcome” in his own city.
Equal treatment under the law is not a complicated concept. The Constitution does not require a city to celebrate any religious holiday. But if a city chooses to spend taxpayer money lighting up its streets for Ramadan, it cannot tell Christians and Jews to sit down and be quiet when they ask for the same courtesy.
That is not coexistence. That is favoritism with a government seal on it.
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