Islamophobia in Higher Education: Combating Discrimination and Creating Understanding by Shafiqa Ahmadi & Darnell Cole Sterling

Abstract

Reviewed by: Islamophobia in Higher Education: Combating Discrimination and Creating Understanding by Shafiqa Ahmadi & Darnell Cole Sterling J.T. Snipes Islamophobia in Higher Education: Combating Discrimination and Creating Understanding Shafiqa Ahmadi & Darnell Cole Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2020, 161 pages, $29.95 (paperback) In a 2021 report to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ahmed Shaheed argued that Islamophobia is on the rise, noting that institutional surveillance and suspicion of Muslims (and those perceived to be Muslim) have reached epidemic proportions. He also noted that global attitudes towards Muslims are becoming increasingly negative, citing that 37% of Europeans surveyed viewed Muslims unfavorably. The US fared slightly better, with 30% of Americans surveyed holding negative attitudes toward Muslims. When examining perceptions of Muslim students on campus, Mayhew and colleagues (2016) found that 43% of students held high appreciative attitudes toward Muslim students. This score was among the lowest for any religious or secular group, with only Mormons having a lower score at 39%. Given the unfavorable attitudes toward Muslims globally and on college campuses, Islamophobia in Higher Education is a timely text that explores the nexus between Islamophobia, institutional structures, and student experiences. Before reviewing the text, it is imperative that I situate myself in relation to the topic of Islamophobia. As a Black Christian man, who grew up in the church and was educated at a Christian university, I am no stranger to Islamophobia. I remember my sophomore year of college living through the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the wake of the tragedy, I saw and participated in hateful Islamophobic rhetoric. I came to understand the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a holy war, pitting Christianity against Islam. I also believed that Muslims at home or abroad were the enemy. It would not be until the 2008 presidential campaign of then-Senator Barack Obama that I, as a second-year master's student, came to understand Islamophobia in a different way. Some of the nation's electorate were gripped in an irrational fear of a Black man whose middle name is Hussein. Islamophobia transformed this brilliant, Harvard-educated scholar into an alleged pawn of the Islamic State and a terrorist. Having a text like this one would have been helpful in further raising my consciousness in relation to white supremacist Christian ideals situated as an assault on Muslims. Islamophobia in Higher Education is a relatively brief edited volume. It begins with Ahmadi and Cole (2020) articulating their threefold purpose for the book. First, the authors aim to examine the institutionalization of Islamophobia in US higher education. Second, they want to describe how institutionalized Islamophobia impacts the various social locations Muslims occupy. Finally, the authors seek to offer recommendations for policy and practice. These purposes shape the structure of the text, yielding two sections. The first section of the book, Chapters 1 through 4, examines Islamophobia through the lens of federal and institutional policies. Chapter 1 begins with an exploration of the Muslim travel bans enacted by the Trump presidential administration (i.e., Executive Order 13769), explaining how the Islamophobic policies of previous administrations made [End Page 347] the bans possible. In enacting this controversial policy that suspended immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries (i.e., Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen), President Trump aimed to fulfill a campaign promise related to border security. The chapter also draws links to the impact of the Muslim travel ban and other Islamophobic policies on Muslim college students. Chapter 2 discusses the criminalization of Muslim students focusing on how institutions surveil Muslims. Chapter author, Parwana Anwar, noted that post-9/11, law enforcement agencies (including the CIA and the FBI) were given legal authority to surveil Muslim communities on and off campus—surveillance made possible through the criminalization of their religious identity. To be Muslim, Anwar claims, is to always and already be a criminal. Chapters 3 and 4 build on the initial framework of the Muslim ban laid out in Chapter 1, exploring human rights and immigration status. Together these initial four chapters provide a deep and rich context of institutional Islamophobia upon which the next section of the book builds. The...