At a time of rising anti-Muslim rhetoric and discrimination, communities nationwide are coming together to push back. This is the third in a blog series titled "," which is meant to highlight this fight for equality and religious freedom.
It is seemingly everywhere nowadays. It’s at the center of the conversation during this perpetual election season. It’s a focal point of the anti-refugee sentiment that is stretching across the Western world. It hangs over the interactions of everyday people, those Muslim and those perceived to be Muslim.
Many say that we are living in a time of peak Islamophobia, and would indicate that this is true. Alongside this rising tide of anti-Islam sentiment is the output of Islamophobia: hate crimes, violence, discrimination, and threats against Muslims, Sikhs, South Asians, Arabs, and other minority groups.
Over the past year, anti-Muslim rhetoric and discrimination have evolved. Muslim Americans had long become accustomed to persistent Muslim-baiting on Fox News. It had become expected that rabid anti-Islam haters like Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Brigitte Gabriel, and others would utilize any platform they could to spew hatred for financial gain. While the wave of anti-sharia legislation that swept the nation between 2010 and 2014 had stagnated, Islamophobia was taking new forms.
What is this “output,” you ask? Armed anti-mosque protests, for one.
In Phoenix alone, we saw multiple such protests last year. During these rallies, armed militia members and people affiliated with the stood with AR-15 assault rifles, screaming epithets and hate toward mosque-goers. Protestors sold “F--- Islam” t-shirts and tried to instigate confrontations with worshippers or the hundreds of people who showed up to counter-protest the event. Other such protests have propped up in many other locations — including in multiple suburbs in the area; in Dearborn, Michigan; and .
In many regards, we are seeing an and Islamophobia taking place in the United States. Multiple gun shops across the U.S. have declared themselves — attempting to fan the flames of hate while pandering to increased violent rhetoric.
This bigotry has resulted in very real consequences. , a man named Craig Hicks shot dead three young Muslims, execution-style, in their apartment. Although not officially deemed a hate crime, an undeniable link can be drawn between Hicks’ anti-Islam views, his obsession with guns, and the devastating violence that took place that day.
Muslims are also bearing the brunt of a constant stream of collective blame when it comes to the atrocities committed by those who claim to be Muslim. In the aftermath of the horrific attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, there has been a sharp increase in the number of violent or Mosques, such as Southern California’s Islamic Society of Coachella Valley, have been firebombed and heavily damaged. Reports of violent attacks against Muslims have sharply increased, as have attacks on .
This is the output of Islamophobia.
But Islamophobia does not only affect Muslims. It affects many communities, most notably Sikhs. In the past few months alone, we have seen being , in addition to a gurdwara — a Sikh place of worship — being vandalized in . Alongside this in violence, there are still those with major platforms — like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — who say Islamophobia is .
Obviously, it is a very big deal. In November and December, we woke up on what seemed like a daily basis to new incidents of anti-Islam hate. The governors of more than 30 states declared they would not accept refugees fleeing one of the worst crises the world has seen since World War II. Policy targeting Muslims everywhere were center stage. We at CAIR-AZ — the Arizona chapter of the Counsel on American-Islamic relations — realized something needed to be done.
In the beginning of the latest wave of hate crimes, Twitter seemed to be the best and most efficient way of tracking the attacks taking place. But while activists and journalists did their best to report on what was happening, there arose a demand for a centralized hub to track these crimes. From this need, #HateHurts emerged.
We started the blog as a platform for documenting the many attacks and bringing light to the stories that were sometimes obscured by the media. We also wanted to humanize these stories, which represent more than statistics or headlines — they are about real people.
In addition to tracking hate crimes and isolated incidents, we are also highlighting stories of individuals who are affected by official policies that adversely impact scores of people. For example, a gaming company banned a professor with the of “Muhammad Khan” from registering on its gaming website because of the company’s attempt to comply with federal guidelines. After the story went viral on Twitter, with some fixes. Another example is the who was profiled at a Mexico airport and refused boarding for failure to remove his turban. It is our hope that aggregating these stories in one place will help the public better understand what our communities face.
After just two months, the project continues to evolve. Islamophobia has become a global issue, and we are now reporting on and tracking the anti-Muslim and anti-refugee sentiment that is sweeping through Europe and beyond. We are adding more bandwidth for , so readers can gain insight into the feelings that discrimination, political demagoguery, and otherization evoke within members of our community. There will be more multimedia content coming as well.
As we move further into election season, it is clear that anti-Muslim rhetoric is still escalating. To counteract this hate, the first step is education.
Imraan Siddiqi is a writer, activist, and the executive director of CAIR-Arizona. He has been published in a wide variety of outlets on the subject of Islamophobia and American Muslims. He is also editor of the website HateHurts.net – a project to track Islamophobia and its fallout on multiple communities. You can follow him on Twitter .
Read the previous posts in this series:
FBI Borrows From Anti-Muslim Playbook in New Video Game
I Am a Muslim American Army Reservist Who Was Turned Away From a Gun Range Because of My Faith
Learn More About the Issues on This Page
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, American Civil Liberties Union and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project: “While this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We’re profoundly frustrated that the administration didn’t take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.” -
Press ReleaseNov 2024
Religious Liberty
Civil Liberties Organizations Unite to Oppose Oklahoma Education Superintendent Ryan Walters’ Latest Push for Religion in Public SchoolsCivil Liberties Organizations Unite to Oppose Oklahoma Education Superintendent Ryan Walters’ Latest Push for Religion in Public Schools
The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Oklahoma, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice are uniting to challenge Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters’s latest attempt to impose religion on students in the state’s public school system. On Friday, the coalition sent a letter to every superintendent in Oklahoma urging them not to show or disseminate Walters’ prayer video. The letter emphasizes the constitutional requirement for public schools to remain secular and warns that promoting the video to students and parents would violate both the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 2 of the Oklahoma Constitution. The letter also points out that Superintendent Walters lacks the authority to require local school districts to play the video (or any other video) to their students. On Thursday, to promote his new “Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism,” Superintendent Walters emailed all superintendents within the state a “Mandatory Announcement” that linked to a video entitled “Prayer for the Nation.” Additionally, the email asserted that all Oklahoma schools must play the video for all their students and send it to their parents. In the video, Walters blames the “radical left” and “woke teachers unions” for “attacking” religious liberty and then delivers a lengthy prayer supporting President-elect Donald Trump. Walters encourages students to join in his prayer. “Requiring students to watch a prayer video violates students’ religious freedom, including their Establishment Clause rights,” the coalition’s letter warns. “It is beyond dispute that, at a minimum, the Constitution guarantees that government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise[.]” The coalition reminds superintendents of their responsibility to protect all students’ religious freedom, regardless of their personal beliefs. By promoting a specific religious perspective, schools risk alienating students who do not share those beliefs, fostering an environment of exclusion and discrimination. The coalition encourages parents and students to report any incidents where the video has been shown or used in schools. Walters separately announced on Thursday that he purchased more than 500 Bibles for Advanced Placement (AP) Government classrooms. In October, the coalition filed a lawsuit on behalf of 32 Oklahomans urging the Oklahoma Supreme Court to block Walters’ mandate that all public schools incorporate the bible into their curricula. This coalition stands firm in defending the rights of every student to receive a secular education free from religious influence. A copy of the letter can be found here: https://ffrf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/State-Superintendent-Ryan-Walters-OK-Religious-Video-Mandate.pdf -
MaineNov 2024
Religious Liberty
St. Dominic Academy v. MakinSt. Dominic Academy v. Makin
The ACLU, ACLU of Maine, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit arguing that religious schools in Maine participating in the state’s school tuition program must comply with all eligibility requirements of the program – including a prohibition on discrimination on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity, among other protected characteristics. -
Press ReleaseNov 2024
Religious Liberty
Court Blocks Louisiana Law Requiring Public Schools to Display Ten Commandments in Every ClassroomCourt Blocks Louisiana Law Requiring Public Schools to Display Ten Commandments in Every Classroom
BATON ROUGE, LA – In a victory for religious freedom, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction today in Rev. Roake v. Brumley, prohibiting implementation of a Louisiana law that requires all public schools to permanently display a government-approved, Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. In the ruling, Judge John W. DeGravelles determined that Louisiana’s H.B. 71, enacted last June, violates the First Amendment and longstanding Supreme Court precedent. More than 40 years ago, in Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court overturned a similar state statute, holding that the First Amendment bars public schools from posting such displays. The defendants conceded during oral argument that Stone remains good law and is binding on lower courts. In his 177-page opinion, the judge explained: [T]hese displays must be posted in every “classroom in each school,” all year round, regardless of subject matter, and regardless of the age of the student. Thus, the question is not whether the Biblical laws can ever be put on a poster; the issue is whether, as a matter of law, there is any constitutional way to display the Ten Commandments in accordance with the minimum requirements of the Act. In short, the Court finds that there is not. First, Stone remains good law and is directly on point, and this Court is bound to follow it. Second, even putting Stone aside . . . , Plaintiffs have adequately alleged that H.B. 71 fails to comply with the Establishment Clause analysis laid out in Kennedy and Fifth Circuit precedent. Judge DeGravelles also recognized that H.B. 71 would lead to unconstitutional religious coercion of the children-plaintiffs in the case by imposing religious doctrine on them for nearly every hour of the school day, throughout their entire public-school education. And, pointing to the testimony of plaintiffs’ expert, Dr. Steven K. Green, the court found that there is no historical support for permanently displaying the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms and that doing so would be at odds with our nation’s Founders’ understanding of the separation of church and state. The court’s opinion concludes: Each of the Plaintiffs’ minor children will be forced “in every practical sense,” through Louisiana’s required attendance policy, to be a “captive audience” and to participate in a religious exercise: reading and considering a specific version of the Ten Commandments, one posted in every single classroom, for the entire school year, regardless of the age of the student or subject matter of the course. And, despite the differences among the Plaintiffs’ religious beliefs (be they Unitarian Universalist, Reform Jewish, Presbyterian, or atheist/agnostic), the common threads are (1) that the required posting of the Decalogue conflicts with specific parts of their faith, and (2) that one of those articles of faith, shared by nearly all Plaintiff parents, is raising their children in accordance with their own beliefs and values. Considering the totality of the circumstances, the Court finds that the Act and its requirements are coercive and inconsistent with the history of First Amendment and public education. The court further ruled that H.B. 71 also violates the plaintiffs’ rights under the Free Exercise Clause. After finding that the law violates the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights, the court prohibited the defendants from “(1) enforcing H.B. 71; (2) adopting rules or regulations for the enforcement of H.B. 71; and (3) requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in every public-school classroom in Louisiana in accordance with H.B. 71.” The Court additionally directed the state defendants to provide notice of its order and H.B. 71’s unconstitutionality to all Louisiana public elementary, secondary, and charter schools, and all public post-secondary education institutions. Because the court denied the defendants’ request to pause (or “stay”) the preliminary injunction while they seek relief from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, it immediately takes effect. “H.B. 71 is a direct infringement of our religious-freedom rights, and we’re pleased and relieved that the court ruled in our favor,” said Rev. Darcy Roake, who is a plaintiff in the case along with her husband, Adrian Van Young. “As an interfaith family, we expect our children to receive their secular education in public school and their religious education at home and within our faith communities, not from government officials.” “This ruling should serve as a reality check for Louisiana lawmakers who want to use public schools to convert children to their preferred brand of Christianity,” said Heather L. Weaver, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. “Public schools are not Sunday schools, and today’s decision ensures that our clients’ classrooms will remain spaces where all students, regardless of their faith, feel welcomed.” “We are pleased that the First Amendment rights of students and families are protected by this vital court decision,” said Patrick Elliott, Legal Director of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “This ruling will ensure that Louisiana families – not politicians or public school officials – get to decide if, when and how their children engage with religion,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “It should send a strong message to Christian Nationalists across the country that they cannot impose their beliefs on our nation’s public school children. Not on our watch.” “Religious freedom—the right to choose one’s faith without pressure—is essential to American democracy,” said Alanah Odoms, Executive Director of the ACLU of Louisiana. “Today’s ruling ensures that the schools our plaintiff’s children attend will stay focused on learning, without promoting a state-preferred version of Christianity.” Jon Youngwood, Co-Chair of Simpson Thacher’s Litigation Department, added, “We are heartened by the District Court’s well-reasoned and detailed opinion, which rests upon the wisdom of the First Amendment to the Constitution and the protections it affords regarding the separation of church and state and the free exercise of religion.” Represented by the ACLU, ACLU of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel, the plaintiffs in Roake v. Brumley are a multifaith group of nine Louisiana families with children in public schools. Today’s opinion, issued by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, is available online here: https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2024/11/LA-10c-Opinion.pdf