Epic Hate in Texas
Anti-Islam organizing targeting the Muslim-led EPIC City development project saw bias mobilizing the power of Texas government to deny Muslims their equal opportunities to pursue their dreams and potential. If the sharia-scare and hatred initiated by Islamophobe Amy Mek and then uplifted by Governor Greg Abbott permanently denies Texas Muslim equal opportunity and protection under the law remains to be seen.
Texas Muslims are integral to the state’s civic, professional, and cultural fabric. This includes providing charitable assistance to the victims of the 2025 flooding and the 2021 power outages. Texas Muslims serve their neighbors by holding local public office. They provide services to women in need, are internationally recognized for research contributions, and provide free medical services.
Despite this positive record, in February 2025, eight months after the announcement of the Muslim-led EPIC City project, Texas Governor Greg Abbott launched an apparently politically motivated campaign against the initiative, continuing a tradition of Texas political figures engaging in anti-Muslim actions. Texas legislators have enacted three pieces of anti-Islam legislation. They have also advanced conspiracy theories ranging from former U.S. Rep. Gohmert’s “terror babies” to Abbott and Senator Cruz’s uplifting the debunked “no go zones” narrative.
A close parallel to the anti-Muslim hysteria in Texas is the experience of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro in Tennessee. The Tennessee example debunks the anti-Muslim narratives promoted by Mek and Abbott. Despite previous anti-Muslim fearmongering in Tennessee, the Constitution remains the law of the land and America’s time-honored tradition of allowing an individual to live by their faith within the confines of U.S. law remains the norm.
EPIC City’s launch messaging in April 2024, what the project leads were saying months before any public scrutiny, was that the project would be a place to “celebrate diversity” and “foster a sense of belonging…for all residents regardless of their background.”
An Islamophobic hate group appears to have inspired Governor Abbott’s attack on the Muslim-led EPIC City project. Rise Align Ignite Reclaim (RAIR) founder Amy Mek has reportedly spread anti-Muslim and antisemitic hate, including encouraging her followers to follow a man who openly praises Adolf Hitler. Abbott entered the conversation about the project by sharing dehumanizing content from Mek’s social media account, then deleting it. Abbott later shared content from another anti-Muslim bigot. The second post Abbott reshared says, “Islam is a militant ideology cloaked in religious rhetoric, with a clear mandate to destroy the west.”
In Texas as elsewhere in the United States, the Constitution is the law of the land. No faith group can impose its beliefs on the American people, and no branch of the government can prevent the American people from practicing their various faiths. The Constitution’s supremacy clause (Article VI, clause 2) ensures that any allegation to the contrary is no more than a conspiracy theory.
During the EPIC City controversy, Governor Abbott and a cohort of anti-Muslim voices attempted to mislead Texans into accepting that the supremacy clause was somehow in question. This has been done before. Dearborn, Michigan, “America’s city with the largest Muslim population” is often ground zero for conspiracy theorists claiming Muslims threaten American law. In 2015, the city was “ranked by the website onlyinyourstate.com as one of the best towns to celebrate Christmas.”
We note that the attack on EPIC City draws from the same playbook as past controversies surrounding Muslim-led development projects, including the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro and New York’s Park 51. We also note that Governor Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attack on EPIC City has not resulted in any evidence of wrongdoing to date and may violate Constitutional prohibitions against arbitrary government action.
Texans have long organized to shape neighborhoods that reflect their values. Across the state, religious communities have developed housing projects, sometimes large in scale, always rooted in service or shared identity without drawing political attacks or public controversy.
