Sameerah Munshi, the only Muslim woman on US President Donald Trump’s religious freedom committee, has announced her resignation, saying she is doing so “in protest.”“Munshi shared the announcement on X, where the post quickly gained traction. In the message, she explained that she had worked as a presidential appointee and advisor to the White House Commission on Religious Liberty.He stated that his resignation was motivated by what he described as the “injustice and atrocities of this administration at home and abroad.” The post also included an essay from Substack where he explained the reasons for his resignation.In his essay, Munshi said he was resigning “in protest” over two developments he described as deeply troubling.The first was the dismissal of Commissioner Carrie Prejean-Boller, which she said was due to the latter’s beliefs about Palestine.
Survey
What do you think of Sameerah Munshi’s decision to resign from the religious freedom committee?
The second was what she called the government’s illegal war against Iran, which she claimed had been “undertaken without clear constitutional or congressional authorization.”Munshi also alleged that some members of the commission “mocked my faith and treated my community with hostility.”Despite this, he said he had initially accepted the appointment in 2025 in the hope of remaining a “voice of reason.”Munshi claimed that the rights of American Muslims were being “marginalized” and that their existence was met with hateful rhetoric intended to “promote particular political agendas.” He also revealed that his family, both Christian and Muslim, came to the United States “fleeing religious discrimination and persecution” which shaped his commitment to religious freedom and his belief in the United States as a safe haven for “people of all faiths.” However, he considered that the commission had ulterior motives. He claimed that people of faith were being stripped of their freedom of expression and their lives put at risk, due to their deeply held beliefs about Palestine, all for the “sake” of a Zionist political agenda. Here he cited the example of the dismissal of Prejean Boller, saying that the commissioner’s religious stance had been treated as an affront to free expression and religious freedom. He also condemned the Trump administration’s illegal murder of children and civilians in Iran, at the “instance of a genocidal state.” “Not only is the American public against this aggression, but our tax dollars fund the very violence we oppose, both against innocent Palestinians and now against Iranians,” he added.
Finally, he boldly added that he was not resigning because of “fear or intimidation” from anyone affiliated with the Commission, the government or any interest group. However, he attributed the cause to what he considered injustice on the part of the commission members. “I support the United States over Israel and, unfortunately, that means I cannot support Trump or this administration.”Munshi supported Prejean-Boller, who revealed on His firing followed a viral clip of his heated exchange at a commission meeting in February, where he insisted that Catholicism and Zionism are not compatible. Additionally, Munshi, who was director of the Religious Liberty Institute, shared with Middle East Eye that she began to feel isolated from the program since September 2025, when she provided testimony before the commission about what she said was a constitutionally protected right in schools to protect Israel’s killing of Palestinians. “After testifying about Palestine, I stopped receiving witness lists before each hearing, so I don’t know if it was a coincidence, if it was an organizational thing, just a lack of communication on their part, or if they literally reproached me for what I testified,” he described. Israel’s war on Gaza killed 72,136 Palestinians. According to Reuters, on March 9, Iranian state media reported that the death toll in the Iran-US-Israel war was 1,270 people. While Americans are protesting against the war between Israel and Hamas from 2023, they are absolutely against war with Iran. According to a CNN poll conducted by SRSS, nearly 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of the US decision to take military action in Iran.