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Mohamed Dakane, founder of the Lewiston High School Muslim Student Association, leans this month in the school doorway where the group meets. The club is one of two at the high school — the other is the Black Student Union — that could be targets of President Donald Trump’s actions to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in schools nationally. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal LEWISTON — When Mohamed Dakane started taking Advanced Placement classes last year at Lewiston High School, it became increasingly difficult for him to attend mosque every weekend and pray five times a day, he said.
He started feeling like he was losing touch with his faith. So, this year the 17-year-old formed the Muslim Student Association at the school and serves as its president. It gives other Muslim students a place to congregate, usually once a week, to better connect with their faith, give guided discussions, share their experiences, and pray, he said.
The roughly 25-member club is fully equipped with a mission, rules and executive board. “I don’t know what made me do it but I just wanted to have a space in school for us, you know, because after school, like, people probably wouldn’t have the energy to go to the mosque but if it’s right in school they can just come downstairs, take a break, calm down, and reflect on their day,” the high school junior said. The club is one of two at the school — the other is the Black Student Union — that could be targets of President Donald Trump’s actions to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in schools nationally.
While Trump has threatened to cut federal funding to schools that don’t eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, students at Lewiston High School — among the most racially diverse schools in the state — expressed optimism recently that administrators would never shut down the clubs because of the important role they play in creating a culture for all students. Dakane said many of Lewiston High School’s Muslim students struggle to find transportation to a mosque, while others are managing heavy school and extracurricular loads. Having a club that supports their faith in school helps them stay connected to it and lets them know they are not the only ones struggling to manage school, faith and family life.
“They can come to school and have like a good place to just talk to other Muslims their age, other teenagers who are learning like how to balance their life at home, their religion and their school, which was something that I struggled with, which is why I wanted to reach out to other people, let them know this is a place for you,” he said. In the 2023-24 school year, 43.4% of the 1,607 students at Lewiston High School were Black, and the school has become more diverse each year since 2017, according to the Maine Department of Education.
Clubs such as the Black Student Union and Muslim Student Association help students build connections with one another and foster a sense of belonging in schools, Mara Tieken, associate professor of education at Bates College in Lewiston, said. Having clubs where minority students can connect enhances their social and emotional well-being, giving them a presence and visibility on the school campus at large, she said. “The fact that they exist, that kind of sanctions the presence of these students on campus,” she said.
“They are a club, the leadership has granted them club status. That, in and of itself, is a way of ..
. saying, ‘We see you, we see you here, you belong as a part of this school.’” It is important for students’ development in general to have a positive view of their racial identity, she said.
Even in schools where there are well-intentioned staff and faculty, there are many ways in which minority students can experience microaggressions. Sometimes those microaggressions can come in the form of learning a curriculum in which they are not well represented. Clubs such as the Black Student Union and Muslim Student Association give minority students a place where they are a part of the majority, where they have a shared identity and don’t have to explain themselves to each other, she said.
The Trump administration’s Department of Education has issued a directive telling all states to remove DEI programming to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, and with the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which banned affirmative action in college admissions. The state has refused, saying as recently as last Thursday, it will not sign a letter confirming with the federal government that it has removed diversity, equity and inclusion programs from schools in compliance with Title VI.
And it also asked school districts not to sign it. The state has issued a letter saying the state and individual school districts already comply with Title VI, but said it is refusing to sign the certification letter because it would bind Maine to language of executive orders or other federal guidance “without the force of law” and “lacked clarity regarding what was, or was not, prohibited.” Efforts to contact Lewiston schools Superintendent Jake Langlais over the past two weeks for his thoughts on Trump’s actions against school DEI initiatives and whether he would continue to support the clubs were unsuccessful.
A judge ruled Thursday that the Trump directive overstepped the executive branch’s legal authority and said the administration did not provide an adequate definition of DEI. The actions add uncertainty to existing school DEI activities, which include Lewiston High School’s growing Black Student Union, where around 20 students gather weekly. Senior Adryanna Viles, 18, is the president of the union.
She said they watch movies important to Black culture and have discussions about topics that impact Black people, such as code switching, which is when people feel comfortable around peers to speak in a way they might not around other groups of people. Many Black students find themselves using slang and discussing things with their Black peers that they might not with their white peers, she said. “They know how I grew up and stuff like that,” Viles said.
“So, it’s like they have a good understanding of who I am, just strictly from the simple fact that they have a good understanding of my culture, because they’re part of my culture.” Mohamed Dakane, right, sits April 16 with Yahya Ismael, the faculty adviser for the Muslim Student Association, in the Lewiston High School classroom where the group meets. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal The way Viles talks to some of her white friends or the voice she uses when she does morning announcements is often a little different than how she talks around her Black friends, she said.
She feels supported when she is able to gather with other Black students who have similar home and school experiences. From having fellow students taking issue with her race in elementary school to a middle school teacher telling her that she did not speak properly, she has experienced microaggressions, which are everyday, thinly veiled instances of racism, she said. Many of her white peers do not understand the fear many Black people live with that their rights might be taken away, though they try to understand, Viles said.
People have different backgrounds and come from different cultures and there needs to be more understanding of that, she said. “Your normal isn’t always going to be somebody else’s normal and I just don’t think that’s talked about enough in Lewiston,” she said. Clubs supporting minority students can have an overall positive impact on the entire school community, Tieken, of Bates, said.
Students in these clubs will often offer important information and perspective — programming — to their peers that can result in cross-cultural understanding. “Some of them really do ..
. focus more on supporting one another,” she said. “Others do programming, and they do really important programming that can contribute to cross-cultural understanding in all sorts of ways .
.. and that’s supercritical.
” The broad diversity of ethnicity within Lewiston High School’s Muslim Student Association has made Dakane feel more seen and more understood, he said. “Our club is already really diverse itself, and when people see that, and ..
. they have like bad thoughts about us, (but) that’s not what Islam is about. And they can see all these people are coming together .
.. and I guess, like try to be more accepting of it,” he said.
Principal Jason Radtke said both student clubs provide a sense of belonging and a positive social environment for their members, which is important in a school where almost half the student body is made up of people of color. “Culturally, they help the school mark events like Black History Month or help provide activities for students during lunchtime while they observe the Ramadan fast,” he said. Neither Dakane nor Viles has experienced instances of overt racism from their peers or staff, they said.
However they do find themselves being asked a lot of the same questions about themselves by their nonminority peers regarding their culture or experience. “People aren’t racist, you know, they’re just uneducated and they’re just reciting what they’ve ..
. heard, like, what they’ve been hearing ever since they were kids,” Viles said. The Black Student Union has only Black members, but they are considering opening it up to everyone next year in the hopes that their peers will attend and learn more about the Black experience, Viles said.
The Muslim Student Association is open for all students wanting to learn more about the Islamic faith and Muslim people, Dakane said. The biggest message he wants the larger community to understand is that Muslims are peaceful people who are tolerant of other people’s faiths. Dakane has inspired a Christian friend to think about starting a school club for his faith.
Viles has always felt like school administrators have supported the Black Student Union and will continue to do so, she said. “I don’t think they (administrators) would allow something like shutting down Black Student Union or any space, like a club, that makes our students feel safe – I don’t think they would let that shut down,” she said. Comments are not available on this story.
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