For more than a year, high-profile Texas Republicans have argued that Muslims are secretly plotting to take over Texas, centering their outrage on the East Plano Islamic Center, a mosque and Muslim community in North Texas known as EPIC. That hysteria resulted in a range of government enforcement actions last year, including a probe by the Texas Funeral Service Commission that barred EPIC from performing funeral rites. Last July EPIC sued the state, alleging Texas had violated its religious freedom. Late Wednesday, a federal judge in the Western District of Texas ruled that the mosque’s lawsuit can proceed despite the state’s attempt to dismiss it. In his ruling, the judge also issued a strong rebuke to claims made by Governor Greg Abbott and other state officials, writing that “no evidence has been presented” that EPIC intends to impose “Sharia law,” Islamic teachings based on the Quran and words of the Prophet Muhammad, on Texans.
The case stems from last March, when the funeral commission issued a cease and desist order that barred the mosque from performing traditional cleansing, shrouding, and prayer over bodies, on the grounds that EPIC may have been unlawfully conducting such rites without a license. (EPIC denies this allegation.) As Texas Monthly has reported, the agency was pushed to issue the order by some of Abbott’s closest advisers, who had made unsupported claims that EPIC and a proposed housing development it was affiliated with, EPIC City, was building a “no go zone” exclusive to Muslims (it was not).
EPIC sued the funeral commission in July 2025, arguing that the cease and desist order was an unconstitutional prohibition on religious practices. In Islam, preparing bodies for funerals stands as one of the most sacred rites; by the time of EPIC’s lawsuit, according to the petition, at least eleven congregants had been forced to receive rites elsewhere—away from their home mosque.
EPIC later amended its lawsuit to include former funeral commission chair Kristin Tips after text messages were released showing she had shared anti-Muslim messages and videos as the agency’s investigation unfolded. Among the examples was a graphic Tips had sent to the commission’s then–executive director, Scott Bingaman, that accused Islam of allowing child marriage and pedophilia. After sending it, Tips texted Bingaman a YouTube video with the title: “EPIC CITY TEXAS! Are Muslims planning a TAKEOVER?”
For nearly a year, the case has been locked in a procedural back-and-forth as Tips and the agency—represented by Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office—have pushed for the court to dismiss the case. Late Wednesday evening, Judge David Alan Ezra, a Ronald Reagan appointee, issued an order denying Tips’s attempt to dismiss the lawsuit. He also rejected Tips’s claim of qualified immunity, which can shield government officials from personal liability in civil cases. That rejection is rare in courts, such as this one, that appeal to the Fifth Circuit, which is one of the most conservative federal appellate courts in the country and is typically welcoming to government defendants.
In his ruling, Ezra cited the funeral commission’s deviation from historical norm in the EPIC case, as the agency has repeatedly asserted—first in 1987 and again in 2014—that Islamic religious organizations could conduct funeral and burial services without government oversight. The judge also affirmed that the alleged conduct—including the cease and desist order and Tips’s anti-Muslim messages—was seemingly “the result of religious discrimination” that violated EPIC’s clearly established religious rights under the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and other laws protecting religious liberty. In a rather remarkable footnote, the judge added that, based on the evidence offered, the court firmly rejected claims “suggesting that EPIC has applied, or intends to apply, ‘Sharia law’ in its practices.”
Though the case will now continue to wind through the courts, the judge’s ruling is a firm rebuke of the anti-Muslim political hysteria fueled by Abbott and his team of advisers. As Texas Monthly reported this month, the governor’s inner circle took an unusually active role in the funeral commission’s regulatory case against EPIC. After being looped into the agency’s pending investigation, which stemmed from an April 2024 complaint levied by a private individual, the governor’s attorneys, including Abbott’s general counsel, Trevor Ezell, edited the boilerplate cease and desist order the commission was ready to issue to make it more severe and punitive.
The original document, drafted by a funeral commission staffer, included a line warning that noncompliance would result in the agency taking “legal action.” Abbott’s team struck that line and suggested replacing it with a “criminal referral” to the Collin County district attorney—in what amounted to a hijacking of the agency’s usual independent regulatory process. At one point, a close adviser of Abbott even reported to a commission staffer that Abbott had texted him that after the cease and desist order was sent out, the funeral commission was his new favorite agency.
Over the following months, the governor’s advisers, including Ezell and a budget and policy adviser, Alex Aragon, weighed in often on the EPIC probe, requesting regular updates, coordinating public statements, and, at times, directing regulatory action. When the agency investigated other cases—such as a high-profile incident in which a Dallas funeral home allegedly accidentally shipped a stillborn baby to a Louisiana laundry facility—the governor’s team exhibited no similar interest. More than a year after the funeral commission’s cease and desist order, its investigation remains ongoing. No violations have been found.
Tips, the agency’s former chair, led the funeral commission until March 12, when, according to an email obtained by Texas Monthly, she “prayerfully” resigned, effective immediately, late in the night. While the circumstances around her departure remain unknown, she had spent months under fire for allegations that she had illegally lobbied for tort reform in her position as chair, which she denies. But in her absence, the governor’s pursuit of EPIC has continued. In March, the funeral commission issued a broad new subpoena to EPIC, seeking every record of funeral services that the mosque has on file.
After EPIC’s attorneys pushed back, arguing the order was too large in scope, Paxton’s office got involved—issuing a letter that demanded EPIC comply. Meanwhile, Abbott has continued his crusade against the mosque, going on Fox News earlier this week to deride EPIC and what he alleged were “multiple violations” of the law. The governor has touted that a dozen state agencies have investigated EPIC. To date, no criminal charges have been filed against the mosque, and a federal probe into EPIC by the the Department of Justice was dropped with no findings of malfeasance.
