President of University of Michigan says there's no place for anti-Muslim discrimination on campus
Last week’s pro-Donald Trump chalk messages on the sidewalks at the University of Michigan have sparked a debate over free speech. While much of the chalk was calling for citizens to vote for Donald Trump, the biggest concern was the “#StopIslam” message in big letter chalked on the University’s prominent diag. At first, school officials said sidewalk chalk is allowed on the campus so it the hurtful message won’t be washed away. Students took the matter into their own hands, though, and washed the message away. After national outcry over the university’s poor response, U-of-M president said there is “no place” for racial and religious discrimination on campus. Although the sidewalk message is protected under free speech, students wonder how far these messages can go and fear for their safety.
BY: Ray Felton
The Guardian
The University of Michigan’s president said racial and religious discrimination have “no place” at the institution, after students on Thursday raised concern over anti-Islam and xenophobic messages scrawled in chalk across the campus alongside messages in support of Donald Trump.
The messages –“#StopIslam”, “Trump 2016”, and “Build the Wall” – come amid a swell of on-campus protests across the US over racial discrimination and inclusivity, while Republican presidential candidates have pushed divisive proposals that would deeply impact the Muslim community: from ramped-up patrolling of Muslim neighborhoods to an outright ban for non-citizens.
The incident followed a separate outcry at Emory University in Georgia, where a series of chalkings in support of Donald Trump has prompted concern and a weeklong debate over free speech. But the messages in the traditionally liberal city of Ann Arbor went farther, taking direct aim at Islam and immigrants.
After the messages were written along the Diag, a main pedestrian walkway that cuts through central campus, police responded on Wednesday, but officials didn’t have the messages removed in line with university policy, a spokesman said.
“The university has a policy that allows chalked messages on walkways in the Diag where this took place,” spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said. A statement earlier from the university said the anti-Islam messages were “inconsistent with our values of respect, civility and equality”, but added: “We all understand that where speech is free, it will sometimes wound.”
Our wonderful university! And us Muslim Students were the ones who had to clean it up in the end 😒😒 #stopislamphobia pic.twitter.com/mKmc0jJGWp
— Rami (@ERebrah) March 31, 2016
A group of students later washed away the messages, with one telling the campus newspaper, the Michigan Daily, the administration’s response “perpetuates these really racist and hateful stereotypes that turn into violence and turn into students of color feeling unsafe on campus”.
Arab American students contacted the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee’s regional office, whose director said it will defend “against the intimidation of our students everywhere”.
“We expect university officials to take proactive measures to ensure safe spaces for our community’s students in these heightened times of Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment,” said Fatina Abdrabboh, the regional office’s director, in a statement.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the University of Michigan president, Mark Schlissel, said the messages caused “members of our community to feel threatened and unwelcome”.
“Racial, ethnic or religious discrimination have no place at the University of Michigan,” he said. “Targeted attacks against groups of people are hateful and serve only to tear apart our university community.”
He added: “I want everyone at the University of Michigan – those hurt by yesterday’s message and others who have expressed similar concerns in association with other events – to know that I am committed to fostering an environment that is welcoming and inclusive of everyone, free from threat or intimidation.”
After the chalkings at Emory, some accused its students of being too sensitive,including the former US House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican and alumnus of the university. On Thursday, Gingrich wrote on Twitter that he’s “worried about the fragility and timidity of some students”.
“In the age of Isis how can a name in chalk be frightening?” he said.
But if the messages on Emory’s campus were less overt, stating: “Vote Trump 2016”, “Accept the Inevitable Trump 2016”, and “Build the Wall”, the U-M chalkings went a step farther, students said, as they coupled the phrase #StopIslam with support for a presidential candidate who has made anti-Islam sentiment a hallmark of his campaign.
Austin McCoy, an activist and graduate history student at U-M, said the messages on campus were tantamount to hate speech.
“There’s a difference between free speech and hate speech,” he said. “Free speech is scrawling Trump 2016. If there’s a student on campus, or off campus, who might come in and write that and support Trump, that’s fine in my eyes.
He added: “Now you add … #StopIslam that seems more aggressive, and it’s aimed at a whole group of people who practice a particular message or who look like they practice a particular message. I see that as more threatening.”
The local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) encouraged anyone with knowledge of the messages to contact the university’s department of public safety.
“We are concerned that these recent anti-Islam and anti-immigrant messages are creating an environment in which some students, teachers and other university faculty members feel unsafe on campus,” said Dawud Walid, executive director of Michigan’s Cair chapter, in a statement.
McCoy said the incident is “bigger than ‘people are using chalk’” to scrawl hateful messages.
“If someone were to get a can of spray paint and scrawl the N-word anywhere on campus, there would be outrage,” he said. “And we would consider that hate speech.”