Islamophobia at School

A settlement was reached last week in the case of four Muslim students against their former football coach, who, they say, discriminated against them because of their religious beliefs. The four players claimed that New Mexico State University coach Hall Mumme interrogated them about their religion and Al Qaeda and promoted Christian prayer at practices while failing to accommodate Islamic religious observances such as prayer and dietary restrictions. After Mumme dismissed three of the players from the team, the American Civil Liberties Union sued on their behalf in August of 2006. The fourth player joined the suit shortly thereafter.

“Hal Mumme created an environment of systemic hostility towards Islam,” ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson told Campus Progress.

Yet Mumme and the university deny that the settlement implies that discrimination took place. “This settlement clearly states that no discriminatory behavior occurred. While this puts the issue to rest, we also maintain the solid integrity and reputation of our university,” wrote NMSU president Mike Martin in a press release.

While the terms of the settlement, including the amount of money paid to the students, remain undisclosed, the ACLU disagrees strongly with the university’s statement. “Here are the facts,” Simonson retorts, “Hal Mumme required players to take part in Christian prayers, he denied Muslim players a dietary option that would accommodate their religious tradition, and he subjected them to a barrage of comments insinuating that their religion was associated with Al Qaeda.”

Jacob Wallace, one of the plaintiffs in the case against Mumme, characterizes the ordeal as “a bit of a misunderstanding” and he is pleased that all the parties “handled this thing in an adult fashion.” Still, Wallace remains concerned that “there’s a mark of Cain on [Muslim Americans], like a gloomy black cloud.”

Some Muslim Americans who have experienced this prejudice find it difficult to express dissenting political views for fear of being called unpatriotic or a terrorist sympathizer as well.

Wallace, like many of his fellow Muslim Americans, feels this pinch: “9/11 was not a Muslim act, it was an act of terror, and it was young men who were confused… I disassociate myself from 9/11 just as I disassociate myself from the war in Iraq.”

Still, it does not seem that Wallace’s distinction is making it through to all Americans. According to a report released in June from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, complaints of civil rights abuses increased by 25 percent last year. Meanwhile, according to a 2006 USAToday/Gallup poll 39 percent of Americans admit to feeling prejudice against Muslims.

“It is getting worse,” says Safiya Ghori, Director of Government Relations at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, “what we see in the media, on the hill… there is a lack of understanding and tolerance towards Muslims in America.”

In May several right-wing media outlets responded to a Pew Research Center Poll with a chorus of alarmist headlines such as “Time Bombs in our Midst,” and “A Hair-Raising Poll.” The poll’s title: “Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream.” Clearly America is a little jumpy when it comes to their Muslim fellow citizens.

Among other things, the poll reported that 26 percent of young (ages 18-29) Muslim Americans believe that suicide bombings of civilian targets could be justified. This statistic, according to sources like Michelle Malkin, indicates the danger which Americans face from their Muslim fellow citizens.

Scott Keeter, the Director of Survey Research at Pew, believes that such inferences remove the question from its proper context. “The question is not asking do you approve of people blowing themselves up in the United States, or any specific setting,” Keeter told Campus Progress. “It is a general question about whether this general tactic is ever justifiable…” In Keeter’s opinion, the statistic is only useful for comparison. When compared to responses to the same question from European Muslims, American Muslims are much less open to the idea of suicide attacks on civilians.

“Everything in that poll said that they want to integrate, they want to be a part of American life,” said Ghori, “But when they continue to be treated as second-class citizens, you’ll see the younger generation saying, ‘why are we being a part of this?’ And that’s going to perpetuate the problem.”

Ironically, the same poll that right-wing media outlets had cited in their alarm over young American Muslims found that Muslim Americans believe one of the most serious problems they face is their negative portrayal in the media (after “discrimination,” “being viewed as terrorists,” “ignorance of Islam,” and “stereotyping”). The study reveals a young American Muslim population afraid of intolerance and discrimination after events like 9/11, while, at the same time, alienated from the United States by its foreign and domestic security policy.

For Muslim college students it has become increasingly difficult to express these sentiments. Many Muslim students, including Wallace and the other plaintiffs in the NMSU lawsuit, have found respite from this hostile environment. With over 150 chapters on college campuses around the country the MSA provides a place for Muslim students to express themselves and their religion. “The key factor in attracting many people to the Muslim Student Association is brotherhood and sisterhood. It makes them feel comfortable,” said Sami Said, a senior at the University of Maryland and former president of his campus MSA chapter.

Some Muslim students have withdrawn from political discourse altogether. “Many Muslims have neglected politics completely,” Said told Campus Progress. “They refrain from politics. They won’t speak about these issues because they feel like they’ll be watched.”

Ghori agrees, “The thought-policing that is going on on college campuses, such as ‘Campus Watch’ led by Daniel Pipes, is an effort to stifle free speech and academic freedom… This is the McCarthyism of today, labeling someone as a terrorist or terrorist supporter.”

Campus Watch monitors Middle East studies departments on college campuses around the country. Their writings consistently level accusations of anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, and Wahhabism at college faculty.

Campus Watch editor, Winfield Myers, responded to MPAC’s criticism: “Campus Watch in no way generates anti-Muslim or anti-Arab sentiment, either on college campuses or elsewhere. Our concern is with the academic enterprise of Middle East studies—the professoriate, their writings, teachings, and their other undertakings related to their positions in academic life.”

Yet it would seem they have strayed from this mission with repeated attacks on the MSA. In an article published on their website Jonathan Dowd-Gailey writes that the MSA “might easily be taken for a benign student religious group,” but that instead it espouses “Wahhabism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism, agitating aggressively against U.S. Middle East policy, and expressing solidarity with militant Islamist ideologies, sometimes with criminal results.” The article goes on to label the MSA “a Saudi creation.”

Myers has a response that he is fond of using when debating those such as Ghori who would accuse Campus Watch of attacking academic freedom: “A systemic weakness of the intellectual left is its equation of criticism with censorship.”

Perhaps censorship isn’t quite the right word, but fear-mongering certainly is. As the 2005 French riots proved, alienating a young Muslim population through xenophobia can have terrible consequences for any society. Let’s hope America avoids the same mistake.

Guthrie Gray-Lobe graduated from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico in ’05. He is an intern at The Century Foundation and writes for www.prospectsforpeace.com.

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