Marine vet says school banned him from daughter’s graduation over pushback on Islam lesson

John Kevin Wood and his wife, Melissa, say their daughter's lessons on Islam violated her civil rights.

A Marine veteran claims he was barred from attending his daughter’s June graduation because he objected to what he saw as the school’s promotion of Islam and -- after voicing his concern to the school -- was issued a no-trespass order, The Washington Post reported.

John Kevin Wood, the ex-Marine, reportedly said that in 2014 one of his daughter's classes required that she memorize the Five Pillars of Islam and recite the shahada, which is also known as the Muslim statement of faith that includes, “There is no God but Allah.” School papers were submitted to a federal court that allege — among other statements — one included that Muslims’ faith is “stronger than the average Christian.”

Wood's daughter completed the class, but refused to submit the assignments that focused on Islam and received zeroes on them, which hurt her overall GPA, a spokeswoman from the Thomas More Law Center told FoxNews.com. She is set to graduate on June 4, but Wood may still be barred.

“The First Amendment prohibits the promotion of the religion of Islam over other faiths, such as Christianity or Judaism, in our public schools,” a federal complaint reportedly stated.

Officials from La Plata High School in Charles County, Md., due to the pending litigation, could not comment on this particular case, but said that the 2014 assignment that Wood objected to was in a World History class that was intended to focus on Middle Eastern empires. The curriculum also reportedly touched on Christianity and Buddhism to name a few.

Wood submitted classroom materials that he says shows the lessons violate the girl’s civil rights. One item stresses that “Islam, at heart, is a peaceful religion” and that jihad is “a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty; a personal struggle in devotion to Islam especially involving spiritual discipline.”

Wood, a Marine veteran who lost friends in Desert Storm, had called the school to ask for an alternative lesson for his daughter, but the school reportedly responded by banning him, stating that he made “verbal threats against the school.”

Wood insists no physical threat was ever made.