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IRAQ: Anti-Muslim Attacks Penetrate U.S. 'Hallowed Halls of Ivy'
By Gitendra E. Chitty
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut, USA, May 9 (IPS) - Since U.S. forces attacked Iraq in March, college campuses nationwide have seen backlashes against both Muslim students and anti-war activists. At Yale University alone, students claim seven instances of violence have occurred on what are normally the sheltered grounds of educational privilege.
''They should all die with Mohammed,'' began an anti-Muslim rant outside Christine Lo's bedroom door. ''We as Americans should destroy them,'' it continued.
Lo, a junior at Yale who had hung a U.S. flag upside-down outside her window to protest the invasion of Iraq, says she never expected the events of Mar. 27, when four male students broke into her suite armed with a plank of wood and tried unsuccessfully to pry open her room door.
After they left, Lo found the note urging Americans to destroy Muslims and ''launch so many missiles their mothers don't produce healthy offspring''.
Although Lo is not Muslim, she believes her anti-war stance prompted the break-in. Other hate-crime complaints were subsequently lodged with university administrators, including one from protester Raphael Soifer after a Yale student spit at him in a dining hall, shouting ''I hope you and your families die! Why don't you go live in Iraq''
Yale is not alone. Late in April, 12 angry students stormed the office of the 'College Voice' newspaper at the College of Staten Island after it printed a pro-Palestinian article. When the administration failed to respond to the incident, the paper arranged its own security, says staff member Omar Hammad.
The office, he adds, has received many phone threats - as recently as last week - calling Muslims ''terrorists'', and demanding they leave the country. The paper's associates say they are likely being singled out because of their many Muslim staff members.. ''I don't see this going away any time soon,'' Hammad told IPS with a sigh.
Some say the university incidents merely mirror incidents in the wider society, echoing the claims of Muslims, Arabs and others of minority descent who have felt a significant increase in racism since the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
A 2002 Hamilton College and Zogby International survey found that almost 75 percent of Muslim Americans either faced physical or verbal attacks since Sep. 11 or know someone who has. According to a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) survey last year, the number of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate crimes and instances of discrimination rose 43 percent from 2001 to 2002, on campus and off.
''Muslim students have felt physical dangers in everyday situations ... labelled unpatriotic and therefore terrorists ... being ostracized based on their beliefs,'' says Sumeyya Ashraf, president of Yale's Muslim Student Association.
Students worry that even the Ivy covered walls will not protect them, she adds. The attacks ''have created an immediate sense of fear on a campus we thought was safe from harm''.
Two weeks after the Yale attacks, Dean Richard Brodhead sent a brief note to all undergraduates, warning them that harassment had no place at Yale, a response that was widely criticised. Even after University President Richard Levin issued a follow-up message condemning the attacks and the school attempted to hold meetings and encourage dialogue, some students insist that the attackers should be found and punished.
''The problem is lack of an adequate response,'' says Shagran Hassan, of Concerned Students at Yale (CSY). Christopher Jordan of Concerned Black Students at Yale (CBSY) agrees, and urges the university to ''re-engage in an honest dialogue about racial, ethnic, religious and political tolerance''. Both groups were formed to counter campus discrimination and hate crimes.
Others believe the recent events are part of a broader problem in U.S. universities. Although Levin believes the incidents are unusual, Shelita Stewart of CBSY is not surprised at the attacks. ''It is not just the war in Iraq'', she says, adding that people do not like to believe that elite universities ''contain hate speech and hate threats ... There is a desire to deny that racism, religious oppression is present''.
Similar campus hate crimes have occurred across the country, including at the University of Virginia, where a minority candidate for student government was targeted, and at San Jose State University (California), where bathroom graffiti exclaimed, ''Muslims will be shot on SJSU campus on March 10!''
At the University of California Los Angeles Medical Center, Muslim prayer rugs in the non-denominational chapel were found soaked in pig's blood.
Students are not the only targets. Cases of discrimination against Muslim employees are being investigated at colleges across the United States. CAIR civil rights consultant Hassan Mirza says a Muslim at an Oklahoma university was repeatedly harassed by co-workers, who hung pictures depicting him as a terrorist and labelling him an ''al-Qaeda operative''.
When complaints to his supervisors were ignored and the man was ''constructively terminated'', CAIR began a case to have him reinstated.
Another Muslim claims she was fired from her job at a Maryland university when administrators became uncomfortable and made comments about her Muslim friends and the copy of the Koran on her computer.
Yale, UCLA and San Jose State officials have condemned the acts on their campuses, but in places where freedom of thought has traditionally been fostered, some students are now afraid to express themselves. Jordan says that students fear appearing anti-American, and hesitate to talk about attacks or other incidents.
Yet not all the news is bad. According to Reuters news agency, UCLA's spiritual centre received a number of queries from people ''of all faiths'' wanting to help pay for new rugs. In Connecticut, Sumeyya Ashraf says the outpouring of support from dozens of campus groups make her proud ''to be part of a community that took a stand against such behaviour and has confirmed that we must never be afraid to speak out''.
(END/2003)
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