Sameerah Munshi, the only Muslim woman on President Donald Trump’s religious freedom commission, has announced her resignation, saying she was stepping down “in protest.”“Munshi shared the news on X and the post quickly gained traction. She explained in the email that she has been serving as a presidentially appointed adviser to the White House Commission on Religious Freedom.She said she was resigning because of “the injustice and brutality committed by this administration at home and abroad.” The post also included a Substack article in which she elaborated on the reasons behind her resignation.Munshi said in the article that she resigned “in protest” of what she called two deeply troubling developments.The first was the removal of Commissioner Carrie Prejean-Boller, which she said was due to her beliefs about Palestine.The second is what she calls the administration’s illegal war on Iran, which she believes is “being conducted without clear constitutional or congressional authorization.”Munshi also claimed that some members of the committee “mocked my faith and were hostile to my community.”Still, she said she initially accepted the appointment in 2025 hoping to remain a “voice of reason.”Munche claimed that the rights of American Muslims are being “marginalized” and that their presence is met with hate speech designed to “advance a specific political agenda.” She also revealed that her family, both Christian and Muslim, came to the United States “to escape religious discrimination and persecution,” which shaped her commitment to religious freedom and her belief in the United States as a safe haven for “people of all religions.” However, she discovered that the committee had ulterior motives. She claimed that because of their deep-seated beliefs about Palestine, believers were denied their freedom of expression and put their lives at risk, all “for the sake of” the Zionist political agenda. Here, she cited the removal of Prejean Boehler, saying the commissioner’s faith-based stance was seen as an affront to free speech and religious freedom. She also condemned the Trump administration for unlawfully killing Iranian children and civilians “at the urging of a genocidal state.” She added: “The American public not only opposes this aggression, but our tax dollars are funding the very violence we oppose, whether against innocent Palestinians or now Iranians.” Finally, she boldly added that her resignation was not motivated by “fear or intimidation” from anyone associated with the commission, the government or any interest group. However, she blamed what she saw as unfairness on the part of the committee members. “I support America over Israel, which unfortunately means I cannot support Trump or this administration.”Munshi supports Prejean-Bole, who revealed on The X on Thursday that the president, who appoints all commissioners, fired her because of her perceived opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and her resistance to those who called her anti-Semitic for her anti-Zionist views. She was fired after a video went viral after she had a heated exchange at a committee meeting in February, insisting Catholicism and Zionism were incompatible. Additionally, Munshi, director of the Institute for Religious Freedom, told Middle East Eye that she began to feel isolated from the program starting in September 2025, when she provided testimony to the committee that the protection of Israeli rights to massacre Palestinians in schools was constitutionally protected. “After I testified on Palestine, I stopped receiving witness lists before every hearing, so I don’t know if that was a coincidence, if it was organized, just a miscommunication on their part, or if they were really against me because of what I was testifying about,” she described. Israel’s war on Gaza has killed 72,136 Palestinians. According to Reuters, as of March 9, Iranian official media reported that the death toll in the Iran-Iraq war was 1,270. Although Americans have been protesting Israel’s war with Hamas since 2023, they are absolutely opposed to a war with Iran. Nearly six in 10 Americans disapprove of the U.S. decision to take military action against Iran, according to a poll conducted by CNN’s SRSS.
