Backlash after Trump reposts St. Paul kindergarten hijab video

Donald Trump’s repost of a St. Paul kindergarten graduation video set off a new wave of anger in Minnesota’s Somali and Muslim communities and helped turn young children into targets. The post centered on Gateway STEM Academy, a public charter K-8 school in St. Paul, and landed hardest in a state where the Somali population is concentrated heavily in the Twin Cities metro area.

The video showed a kindergarten promotion ceremony at the school, with several girls wearing hijabs under blue graduation caps. The original post, published in June by the right-wing account End Wokeness, read: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.” Trump reshared the clip on Truth Social on Monday, July 6, without adding his own caption.

The repost quickly fueled hateful rhetoric online and deepened fears about student safety. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz criticized the post, saying Trump was attacking kindergarteners over their clothing. The Council on American-Islamic Relations and CAIR-Minnesota said the post put a target on the students and their school, and Muslim and Somali leaders said families were worried about what the attention could mean for children walking into school this fall.

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR-Minnesota, called Trump’s action “incredibly sad” and said it amounted to targeting kindergartners. Faith leaders and other advocates echoed that message, voicing public solidarity with the students and urging people to reject attempts to stigmatize children for religious dress.

Minnesota is home to one of the country’s largest Somali communities, much of it centered in the Twin Cities, and the episode arrived amid a broader rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Somali rhetoric nationally and online. It followed earlier Trump remarks aimed at Somali immigrants and Rep. Ilhan Omar.