June 28, 2012

After conducting its University of California Campus Climate Survey for the past few months, MPAC learned that 54 percent of students polled are involved with a Muslim group on a UC campus have faced intimidation.

Many of these students felt that when they reported intimidation to administration officials, they either did not know how to handle the situation or nothing happened. Intimidation toward Muslims occurred in the form of:

• pictures of Muslim student group members distributed on campus that implied they supported terrorism
• student groups were heckled, called terrorists and
• students groups were plagued with obscene and racists comments on their websites

Focusing on six UC campuses -- Berkeley, San Diego, Los Angeles, Irvine, Santa Cruz, and Davis -- the survey focused on Arab or Middle Eastern decent or those involved in peace and justice groups.

A majority of the more than 100 students who completed the survey said they felt the school administration did nothing when an incident was reported. The survey found that 71 percent of the respondents didn’t feel the UC system proactively counters Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment on campus.

Many students cited an email from UC President Mark Yudof that was sent to the entire UC student body which said the UC's do not tolerate anti-Semitism without making any similar zero-tolerance policy toward Islamophobia or anti-Arab sentiment. Students felt that this showed the need for more engagement between students and the administration.

In order for all students to feel safe and equal, students felt hate speech in the form of bigotry should be taken seriously by the administration. Even though college is about exploring, learning and understanding freedom of speech and expression, it should be done with moderation and with respect to all students, regardless of differences.

-- Rima Sabih
(rima@mpac.org)
Civic Outreach Intern