A Wylie ISD principal has resigned after receiving months of backlash over a campus visit from a group that provided informational material on Islam.
The district said Wylie East High school principal Tiffany Doolan informed them of her resignation on May 26. In February a group called Why Islam provided copies of the Quran, informational pamphlets and henna to students and allowed them to try on hijabs during lunch.
Wylie ISD told the Dallas Morning News at the time a student club had invited the organization but did not follow district protocols.
“From the beginning, the district acknowledged that the situation should never have occurred and that serious mistakes were made,” Wylie ISD said in a news release.
Since the organization’s visit, Doolan has been the target of online and public harassment, the district said, including vulgar and threatening phone calls and emails. Photos of Doolan wearing a hijab during past World Hijab Day activities on campus, were circulated online by a right-wing account and “weaponized … without important context.”
“The activities depicted in those photos were student-led and occurred before the implementation of Senate Bill 12, which took effect in September 2025 and significantly changed how student organizations may operate in public schools,” the district said.
Wylie ISD acknowledged the Feb. 2 event was a “procedural mistake” but said it should not have led to the months of harassment Doolan and the district received. “Holding people accountable and tearing them down are not the same thing,” the district’s news release said.
Anti-Muslim rhetoric has been on the rise in Texas. Fort Worth ISD last week announced it was reassigning a Muslim principal after a right-wing social media account circulated the district’s announcement of her hire, which included a photo of her wearing a hijab, and shared screenshots from her personal social media profiles in which she showed support for immigrants, Palestinians and Dreamers.
“It didn’t happen in a vacuum,” Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said at a news conference calling for Shayma Alzubi’s reinstatement. “In recent months, Texas Muslims have been targeted by a vicious campaign of hate by some political leaders in the state.”
Doolan had worked in Wylie ISD since 2007 and served as principal of Wylie East for the past six years. The district told KERA News Doolan will not issue any statements beyond a letter she wrote to Wylie East families announcing her departure.
“I know schools are not perfect because people are not perfect, and I certainly am not,” Doolan wrote. “But I hope you know this – every decision I have ever made was rooted in care for students and in what I believed was best for kids.”
Avery Escamilla-Wendell is KERA’s news intern. Got a tip? Email Avery at aescamillawendell@kera.org. You can follow her on Instagram @by_avery_escamilla.
