Margot Cleveland, a senior legal correspondent at the conservative news and opinion outlet The Federalist, is filing a lawsuit against the city of Dearborn, Michigan and the city’s mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, for allegedly violating the First Amendment of the Constitution by exclusively displaying Muslim symbols in public and accusing the city of being a hostile environment for both Jews and Christians.
Cleveland then said that the city has put several banners celebrating the Islamic holiday of Ramadan and a display of crescent moons, but refused to show iconography from the Christian or Jewish religion. “I was picking up pizza in downtown Dearborn. When I went down the boulevard, up and down the street were ‘Ramadan Kareem’ (generous Ramadan) banners, which is the equivalent of a happy or blessed Ramadan,” Cleveland said in an interview with Fox News.
“This was the fourth week of Lent. We had Easter coming up in two weeks, and Passover was a week away. I was shocked, and then I saw the display all by itself — again, the crescent moon,” she added. Cleveland turned in a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to find out how much the Islamic displays cost, which, according to the lawsuit, is how she discovered Islamic iconography was being used in other official capacities.
According to Fox News, Cleveland said, “The police department was selling — with the police department’s seal — Ramadan T-shirts. It had the police department seal and a crescent moon, and I believe it said Ramadan.” The Dearborn Police Department was asked about the t-shirts, but had not issued a response as of this writing.
Cleveland tried to contact city officials several times, but received no response until a city councilor told her that the council had been instructed not to engage with her. “I reached out to city council, every individual, both their public email and a secondary one. Received no response,” she explained. “But on LinkedIn, one of the council members responded and said, ‘Hey, we were told we can’t talk to you.'”
The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent then attended an open city council meeting in May 2026. During the meeting she asked that the councilors, who she noted controlled the city’s purse strings, use an ongoing budget surplus to buy banners that celebrate Jewish and Christian holidays. “I have not asked the city not to celebrate Ramadan,” she told all in attendance at the meeting.
“What I’ve asked is that the city treat Christians and Jews equally. Put up Passover banners, Easter banners, put up a Star of David, put up a cross, do something. And throw in some patriotic symbols to show we are one Dearborn, one country where all faiths are represented equally. That has not been done,” she continued. In response, the city hung even more decorations in celebration of Ramadan.
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“After I was ignored, what happened? The mayor then went and bought more Ramadan displays. I complained about the banners. What does he go? He goes bigger and brighter with lighted Ramadan displays,” she went on to say. “People who are not in Dearborn do not understand Dearborn. My beef is with the mayor and the people running the city, who are discriminating against Christians and Jews. The average people who live in Dearborn get along great. It is a diverse city and people get along. The mayor is causing a problem.”
The city government of Dearborn has rejected the accusations made by Cleveland, issuing a statement addressing the situation shortly after the lawsuit was filed. The statement said that Dearborn “has a longstanding commitment to serving all residents fairly and equitably, regardless of faith or background,” the statement said. “Dearborn will continue to uphold the rights and dignity of every resident and remain a city where everyone is treated with fairness, respect, and equal protection under the law.”
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