Texas governor asks Justice Department to investigate Muslim wash stations at airports

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has referred to the U.S. Department of Justice allegations of discriminatory religious facilities at Dallas-Fort Worth International and George Bush Intercontinental Airports.

The announcement from the Republican’s office came on Friday. A week earlier, Abbott said he was ordering a review of state grants to the operators of the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston-based airports in the wake of an abandoned proposal to install Islamic washing machines.

“These ablution stations single out one subset of the population for special treatment based on religion,” Abbott said in a statement on Friday. “They are not interfaith chapels open to all. They exist to benefit the Muslim population alone. Government-owned airports cannot favor one religion over all others.”

The airports were reviewing proposals to install Islamic wudu washing facilities, leading to Abbott’s review. He noted in his referral on Friday that Dallas-Fort Worth already has two such facilities, despite having abandoned plans for another. George W. Bush Airport, meanwhile, “has already installed one such facility and an interconnecting prayer room furnished with ‘copies of the Quran, prayer rugs, prayer beads and a turbah,’” Abbott wrote.

Wudu is a ritual purification in Islam, performed to cleanse certain parts of the body before prayer or reading the Quran. Ablution stations, also known as wudu stations, are low-level basins with specialized faucets, foot-level spray nozzles and seats to facilitate washing of the hands, face, arms and feet.

In his letter to U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche and Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, Abbott called on Justice to immediately review the airport facilities and take appropriate corrective action.

While both airports have said they don’t use federal tax dollars for airport operations, Abbott said that because “the airports receive federal funds, they are subject to numerous conditions attached to that funding—including the requirement to comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination and protecting the rights of all Americans.”

Abbott added that “Airports can no more offer Muslim-only bathroom spaces than they can maintain white-only bathrooms,” asking the Justice officials to “investigate and put a stop to these discriminatory practices.”