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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Comments
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I think this article makes some great points and shines light on a problem which is very real for some students. At my school this past year, there were a number of acts of “Islamophobia” which gained the campus’ attention, including the anonymous posting of hateful anti-Muslim fliers (http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/19004?badlink=1) which got students talking about the issue (http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/19235). Many Muslim students told me acts like this didn’t simply upset them, they made them feel unsafe on campus. No one should feel threatened on campus. No one should be persecuted for their religious beliefs. We all wish our world was without intolerance.
But it has to go both ways. I wholeheartedly support schools having a Muslim Students Association and I know MSA has been a great addition to my campus. But I don’t support the students from the MSA chapters at UC Irvine who protested a Daniel Pipes speech crying for the day when “the state of Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth.” I’m open to political discourse about the Middle East and am by no means a Zionist or even pro-Israel, but I can’t get down with calling for anyone to be “wiped off the face of the earth.” Same goes for the MSA members at UC Berkeley who shouted at Pipes and held signs reading, “Israel Wants You to Die for Her.”
You made a great point about the anxiety-mongering headline twisting, which turned “Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream” into “Time Bombs in our Midst.” That said, you can’t just write off the 26 percent number as no big deal simply because even more young Muslims in Europe believe suicide bombings of civilians could be justified. You point out the statistic is “only useful for comparison.” Do you think 26 percent of young Christians or Jews are as supportive of suicide bombings?
I won’t ramble on past my stay.
— Zach - Jul 1, 11:00 PM - #“Do you think 26 percent of young Christians or Jews are as supportive of suicide bombings?”
Be careful when you ask that. It sounds dangeroulsy close to pointing at Islam as inherently more violent than either of the two religions, which is clearly not the case. I’m sure you realize that a statistic like that is much more complicated, and is a reflection not just of religious beliefs but societal and economic factors that affect and in many parts of the world (including the Middle East) have isolated Muslims from the rest of the population. That statistic doesn’t speak to Islam so much as it does to the state of the Muslim nation in the international heirarchy.
— anon - Jul 2, 11:48 AM - #Anon, you’re right that it doesn’t and shouldn’t be read to say anything about Islam as a religion. What is, and should be worrying, is what it says about the culture that has developed around that religion. It should be worrying that 26% of a cultural group within the U.S. support an action considered morally abhorrent by the rest of the country (and in my opinion, rightly so). It says something worrying about the culture in which these young people are raised.
Additionally, Zach makes a good point about Muslim groups. There is a valuable place for them and they have a role to fill. Nonetheless, I was disturbed at how often the Muslim student group at my school hosted events that were one-sided and pro-Muslim to a fault (not just on Israel – one speaker panel featured the ambassador of Sudan with representatives of several NGOs who downplayed the genocide in Darfur and excused the government from any responsibility). Their role needs to be promotion of reasoned dialogue, which should include a critical examination of the failures of Muslim states and problems within culture.
— Ben - Jul 2, 03:36 PM - #The 26 percent is certainly a “big deal.” But to reduce it to its “suicide bomb” component is miss the mark. We have no idea when or where they are imagining suicide bombings of civilian targets to be “justified,” but we can guess that this includes, probably in large part, Israel. Perhaps the situation that they are imagining is not even taking place right now anywhere in the world. Just as young people are fixated with movies like “Saw,” and its situations where extreme pain, fear, and suffering result in the destruction of moral and ethical behavior, so too can we expect Muslim youth to have morbid imaginations.
a PIPA poll from earlier this year found that 51 percent of Americans support attacks on civilians in undefined circumstances (mind you, these are not suicide bombings, but I am not sure what difference this makes besides illustrating the lack of desperation with which our American culture embraces civilian death. Of course, this is to be expected.
And it is not hard to understand why: IN order for us to believe in the righteousness of our country, many Americans feel as though they must support attacks on civilians. The firebombing of Dresden, Tokyo, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Americans are loath to part with the idea that these acts were “justified.” After WWII 85 percent of Americans said the attacks were “justified,” and, still, a majority of Americans believe that. Instead of condemning this attack on civilians as we appear to be expecting young muslims to do, Hiroshima and Nagasaki treated as logical conundrums, on which the verdict is known only by god.
I am sure many people will want to respond to this explaining how the atomic bombings were justified. You may be correct in that, but that does not change the fact that you are harboring a double standard for Muslim Americans. And I am sure many people would respond that the 26% support attacks “in defense of Islam,” whereas the atomic bombings were in support of America, or peace, or cheeseburgers, or something. There is no consensus in America as to what WWII “defended.” Similarly, in America, there is no consensus as to what we will defend with our violence in the future. To say that Islam is antithetical to all other possible candidates is to fall into the a fundamental Islamophobic trap.
— whodat - Jul 3, 12:21 PM - #Great article.
To me, the fundamental distinction here is between Islam and Islamists – that is, “political Islam”.
— Joe - Jul 6, 02:50 PM - #In response to Zacks commet “would we think the Christians and Jews are supportive of suicide bombing? No, I do not but I know that they have been complicit in dropping cluster bombs coated in depleted urainium which will remain in the soil for generations. there are better ways to promote peace.
— trese - Jul 6, 11:21 PM - #I love this article with all my heart. I will treasure it always.
— Phil - Jul 12, 02:41 PM - #Then climate is worse than most people know. I was also targeted as a Muslim terrorist and I’m not even Muslim. It happened at the University of Connecticut (UCONN) and my harassers were relentless. You can read about it at www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com if you like. It’s good to spread the word as it will help to expose the problem I like this article.
— yellowngreen - Jul 18, 08:16 PM - #Unfortunately at this day in age Islam does appear to be the most violent and intolerant religion on the globe, hands down. To me it seems that just about everywhere there is a sizable Muslim population they are fighting with (killing) their neighbors of various religions be they Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, or have indigenous beliefs. Some of the many examples of this worldwide: Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Israel/Palestine, India, Serbia/Bosnia, Chechnya, Sudan, Somalia/Ethiopia. Sorry, sometimes actions speak louder than words. Heck, if you are not concerned about violent Islam you are not taking a good look at the global picture!
— anon - Jul 22, 12:08 AM - #Good job Anon (Jul 22 post) Every Muslims go they bring hate. I used to think all people deserved a chance and should be judged by their owm merits. However Muslims have been breeding hate and trying (and succeeding) to establish religous societies anywhere 10 or more muslims reside. I think this is justified discrimination towards their own intolerance. Save America, deport a muslim.
— Aaron - Aug 15, 12:59 PM - #I don’t advocate impeding the rights of law abiding, patriotic Muslims. I do advocate that people should know that Islam is the most intolerant Political-Religious system in the world and that the average person is extremely ignorant of it’s violent edicts. I highly advise people to read the Koran and the Hadith as well as books about it such as the New York Times best selling, The Politically Incorrect guide to Islam and the Crusades by Robert Spencer as well as visit www.thereligionofpea…
— Roy - Apr 22, 03:37 PM - #