Muslim students respond to study

A recent study by the Canadian Federation of Students’ Task Force on the Needs of Muslim Students found that harassment, hostility, vandalism and a lack of religious accommodation are common experiences for Muslims at universities in Ontario, Canada.\n“Discrimination toward Muslim students is a systemic feature of Ontario’s post-secondary education system,” the report concluded. This information raises questions about the experiences of IU’s own Muslims. \nSenior Khalil AbuGharbieh, president of the Muslim Student Union, said the report isn’t a “damning criticism” but works as general guidelines for what universities should do to create good environments for Muslim students. He said that though Bloomington has experienced a few incidents of religious intolerance, the \nsituations described in the Canadian report were not common at IU. He said there is a lot of support from the University for the Muslim community..\n“There have been times when we’ve felt targeted,” AbuGharbieh said, referring to two years ago when a holy phrase was offensively spray-painted on campus sidewalks and Bloomington’s mosque was firebombed. “The good news is that there was a really broad campus response for that. I think, by and large, this is a great community for us, and these are just isolated incidents.”\nThe study’s results came as a surprise to those involved in compiling them, said Jesse Greener, Ontario chair for the Canadian Federation of Students. He said they tried to reach a broad geographic area, and no matter where the task force visited, he said, the findings were the same.\nThough the findings detailed a number of incidents that the Ontario Human Rights Code would identify as being part of a “poisoned environment,” Greener said they aren’t indicative of “general animosity” on Ontario’s campuses.\n“By definition, an incident is a singular event,” he said, and the report’s identification of any negative atmosphere doesn’t just come from acts of hate. The study found that “discriminatory or hate-inspired acts” were a significant phenomenon on Ontario’s campuses. But interviewees often cited their fellow students’ cultural ignorance as the reason for Islamophobia. \n“There are so many little things in everyday life that you don’t even take notice of them anymore,” said junior Myeda Hussain, a public-relations officer with the Muslim Student Union. “Like when a professor has a doctorate degree in political science and he can’t even pronounce ‘Muslim,’ or he uses the word ‘Islamics.’ It’s basic, basic, basic knowledge.” \nThe task force found that Muslim women faced more acute discrimination based on their gender, especially women who wear the hijab.\n“When (my friend) tells me the difference between her everyday life while she was covered and then uncovered, it’s completely different how people treat her,” Hussain said. “For example, even the little things, like when you’re going to Subway, and (the server) asks you, ‘What do you want on this?’ But when she was wearing a scarf, people were mean and rude.”\nAfter briefly faking ignorance at the idea that these attitudes exist in the West, graduate student Ahmed Khanani, the Muslim Student Union’s student advisor, admitted that he wasn’t surprised by the report’s findings.\n“Islamophobia is nothing new in this sense of the creation of an ‘other’ who is not a human,” he said. “It’s simply the latest manifestation of this. It’s always been about dehumanization, which is at the heart of Islamophobia, at the heart of racism, at the heart of sexism, at the heart of classism.” \nOntario’s Muslims also complained of a “sense of isolation” caused by a lack of religious guidance on campus and inadequate counseling services for victims of hate acts, according to the task force’s report.\nAbuGharbieh said that because the Islamic community at most universities is much younger than other religious groups, institutional support is often lacking. Adding a Muslim chaplain at IU could be a way to remedy the situation and provide students with direction, he said.\nThe Canadian Federation of Students notes that problems are compounded by university systems unprepared or unwilling to deal with Islamophobia on campus.\nThe most helpful thing an administration can do is “just to not be vague about it,” AbuGharbieh said. Universities shouldn’t recoil from handling incidents outright, he said.\nGreener said he hopes “non-Muslims will gain an appreciation for the depth and breadth of the challenges that Muslims face.”\n“At the end of the day,” he said, “this report can and should be seen as a tool with broad-reaching applications.”