Duval School Board member Tony Ricardo is one of six board members who voted to remove the book "Identical" from school shelves in April 2025. | Megan Mallicoat, Jacksonville Today
Published on November 3, 2026 at 5:30 pm
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Jacksonville city and community leaders are calling for School Board member Tony Ricardo to resign over a social media post disparaging Islam.
Ricardo shared an image Sunday that called Islam a “political cult masquerading as a faith.” He did not respond to Jacksonville Today’s requests to comment for this story.
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In a statement released Tuesday, Jacksonville City Council member Jimmy Peluso said “a simple apology cannot undo” the harm Ricardo’s post caused.
“School board members are entrusted to serve every child in our district, including our Muslim students,” Peluso said. “When an elected school official shares content that portrays a whole faith as illegitimate, families have good reason to question whether their children will be treated fairly.”
The AI-style graphic includes the logo and name of a group called “Americans Against Islamification,” a far-right group with ties to provocateurs Jayden Scott and pardoned Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang, who briefly ran against Ashley Moody in Florida’s Republican Senate primary earlier this year.
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Group members call themselves “crusaders” and are vocally anti-Muslim. In the original caption that accompanied the graphic Ricardo shared, the group said, “We Need Total REMIGRATION today.”
Arab-American Jaxons
Jacksonville has a long history of being home to a community of Arab Americans. Mayor Donna Deegan’s great-great-grandfather, Jacob Hazouri, was one of the city’s early Lebanese immigrants.
“This isn’t behavior the public expects from an elected official in charge of school system policy,” Deegan told Jacksonville Today. “Muslim students, like all other students, should feel welcome, and parents deserve to know their children are safe. We must demand better. Religious prejudice does not belong anywhere in our city.”
The U.S. census doesn’t track respondents’ religions, but the Association of Religion Data Archives estimates that as of 2020, a little less than 1% of Duval County residents were Muslim — higher than the statewide average of about 0.6%.
The largest percentage of religious affiliation is Evangelical Protestants, about 37% of the county’s population. Catholics stand at 13.5%. Mormons represent 0.08% and Jewish people 0.5%.
Ricardo reposted the image after a group he’s a member of, Americans Rising, shared it. Ricardo liked that group’s post.
Americans Rising is a group moderated by people with ties to Jacksonville, including Robert Bracewell, executive director of the Justice Coalition. The group says it is not affiliated with a specific political party or candidate, but its purpose is to “support and defend the Constitution, the Rule of Law, and Law Enforcement.”
The Islamic Center of Northeast Florida also called for Ricardo’s resignation. On Monday, the center released a statement saying the group “strongly condemns the deeply offensive and Islamophobic statements shared by an elected Duval County School Board member, falsely claiming that Islam is not a religion and misrepresenting the teachings of the Quran.”
OneJax, an interfaith coalition representing all faiths, released a statement Monday that called Ricardo’s decision to share the post “deeply disturbing.”
“What message does this send to Muslim students attending schools under the authority of this board member?” the Rev. Beverly Dempsey, OneJax CEO, said. “School board members are not merely private citizens expressing personal preferences. They are public officials exercising authority over institutions responsible for educating children of every race, religion, and background. While they retain their constitutional right to free expression, that right does not exempt them from public scrutiny, ethical accountability, or the responsibility to maintain public trust.”
‘Part of a pattern’
It’s not the first time Ricardo’s social media posts have prompted criticism. Before winning his election in 2024, his Facebook profile included numerous publicly visible posts targeting the LGBTQ community.
After his election (but before taking office), Ricardo used his Facebook profile to spread false information during hurricane season about the government’s ability to manipulate the weather. Eventually, Ricardo stopped posting publicly and hid most of his previous posts from public view.
The current controversial post was visible only to his Facebook friends, but a screenshot of the post has now been widely shared.
Duval Schools issued the following statement: “The views expressed by individual Board members reflect their personal perspectives and do not represent the collective position of the School Board or Duval County Public Schools.”
Council member Peluso said Ricardo “has a history of disparaging the very communities he was elected to represent” and called the current post “part of a pattern.”
“This is not about his right to speak. It is about his ability to lead and to inspire a supportive and safe learning environment for all students, faculty and staff,” Peluso said. “Our city is stronger because people of every faith, background, and culture call Jacksonville home. Those who set policy for our children must honor that.”
