Stanford faculty claim Islamiphobia, do not give examples

Teaching fellow, Yusuf Zahurullah, questions Stanford University for allowing the College Republicans group to host “very Islamophobic speakers,” following a years-long trend by university faculty to avoid discussing Islam.

“CSRE 30: Interrogating Islamophobia is a new 1-unit course taught this fall by Abiya Ahmed, the Markaz Resource Center Associate Dean and Director,” according to The Stanford Daily. Zahuruallah will be a teaching fellow for the course. 

“There are certain political groups on campus, namely Stanford College Republicans, who in years past have brought in very Islamophobic speakers,” Zahurullah told the news site. 

Zahurullah referred to the club’s speakers as hosting, “Islamophobic incidents on Stanford’s campus,” but did not provide examples of specific incidents or name any speakers. 

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Rather he told the publication that he believes Islamophobia can manifest in ways such as “hate crimes and verbal abuse, or more systemic things like the Muslim ban that Trump tried to pass.”

Ahmed, mentioned above, also admitted that they class will go beyond “statistics” to explain Islamophobia. 

This is not the first incident Campus Reform has reported of Stanford faculty labeling conservative speakers as Islamaphobic, never citing specific details to explain their reasoning. 

In 2019, Stanford administrators wrote an open letter opposing Andrew Klavan from speaking on campus, citing “anti-Muslim sentiment” for a YouTube video in which explained the word “Jihad.” 

“We stand firmly against vilification of Islam,” the administration said.

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Campus Reform also reported that students at Stanford staged a walkout of Robert Spencer’s speech hosted by Young America’s Foundation in 2017.

“‘The idea that ideas are to be rejected on the basis of whether they are acceptable to various elites—that’s just the opposite of what free discourse really is. And so these Stanford people who just left are actually behaving in a way that’s completely in opposition to what a university ought to be,’ Spencer remarked as the protesters exited the auditorium.”

Stanford took no action against the students who disrupted the event.

Campus Reform contacted all parties mentioned for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.