Anti-Muslim Bias Incidents Jumped More Than 50 Percent in Past Year
Anaheim, CA: The California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-California) July 25 published the 2016 CAIR California Civil Rights Report , which reveals that anti-Muslim bias incidents saw a significant increase since last year.
A total of 1,556 incidents, 554 from the Los Angeles area alone, were reported to CAIR-California over the course of 2015. These included complaints involving: employment discrimination, federal law enforcement questioning, housing discrimination, immigration issues, hate crimes, school bullying, and several others.
The report's key highlights include:
- Reports of bias incidents spiked by 58% between 2014 (115) and 2015 (197), which is attributed to public hostility generated by international acts of violence and hateful rhetoric by candidates since the start of the election cycle.
Reports related to immigrants' rights almost doubled between 2014 (220) and 2015 (428).
CAIR-California provided legal assistance to persons who were fired for praying and even persons who faced hostile work environments as retaliation for reporting discriminatory behavior to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
Most incident reports fell under the categories of hate incidents and Islamophobia, immigration, employment discrimination, and law enforcement interactions.
Based on these findings, CAIR California recommends:
- American Muslims experiencing any type of hate incident report the incident to their local CAIR office and police department for assessment and recording purposes.
Employers create a safe workplace environment where employees feel both empowered to speak out internally against discrimination and harassment in the workplace and confident that they will receive protection from such behavior and not retaliation.
Schools provide comprehensive diversity training to their administration and faculty, as well as training on how to properly respond to bullying under California and federal law.
