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Solomon's appearance at Enloe, shocked many students, who took his pamphlets home and showed them to their parents, students said. One pamphlet, comparing Jesus with Muhammad, says the Muslim prophet "enslaved people, abused women and taught Muslims to terrorize non-Muslims and force them into Islam."

Another specialist on church-state separation said the incident clearly violated the First Amendment, which prohibits public schools from engaging in religious indoctrination.

"It's not even a close call," said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the nonprofit First Amendment Center in Washington

"Schools may neither promote religion or denigrate religion," Haynes said. "To do either in a public school setting with a captive audience is unconstitutional."

Enloe has at least a dozen Muslim students, and their parents were especially enraged.

"This is a personal offense against me and my family," said Fred Robati, an Iranian-born Raleigh resident whose son, a senior, and daughter, a sophomore, attend Enloe. "It's an insult. It's hateful. It's derogatory."

The posting was particularly galling to Tariq Butt of Raleigh, a Muslim whose daughter, Saira, is a student at Enloe. Butt exchanged several e-mail messages with Escamilla in which the teacher said he did not know Solomon and was not aware of his Web site.

"To me, Mr. Escamilla's enthusiastic support of Mr. Solomon shows he was not just presenting a point of view, but promoting his agenda," Butt said.

MESSAGES OF THANKS AND UNDERSTANDING

The e-mail Kamil Solomon posted on his web site, www.kimo4jesus.org:

Thank you so much for coming and speaking so effectively to our students, helping them to open their minds to see more light. I think we should be able to get you back again. Though there was some flack that arose from some of the students talking about it with some other teachers and principals, Mrs. Johnson (my dept. chairperson) was able to explain very well so that it should not be a problem. Below you can see her message to the principals so they will be prepared if any students or teachers or parents contact them with complaints or whatever. I got the email of some photos you made, very nice. Hopefully all the pictures were good for you. Thanks again.

May God continue to richly bless you and to powerfully use you to give Him much glory .

Your brother and friend in Christ, Robert

Hello all. I thought I might give a little information on our speaker activity today. ... just in case you have any "flap" about it. The speaker that came today is an Egyptian man who had undergone torture and imprisonment in Egypt for religious beliefs. We have taught our students to be very aware of POV (Point of View) and bias. This man definitely has a bias from his experiences. He is a primary source and he used primary sources to illustrate some of his points. As he told his story he said over and over. ... this is my opinion, you can have your own. It is our responsibility as educators to give our students the tools by which to evaluate, question and research issues they may encounter. Some good conversations that have already evolved are about how something can be biased and still be credible, keeping things in context and interpreting primary sources.

I hope this helps if you have any phone calls.

Marian

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