Rights group files complaint against US university over failure to protect Muslim, Arab students
A leading Muslim-American civil rights group filed a complaint with the US Department of Education against the University of Michigan, calling on the agency to investigate whether or not the institution has failed to protect Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and South Asian students from discrimination on campus.
The federal complaint, filed on Wednesday, from the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair-MI), comes after a student group leaked an audio recording, in which it is purportedly president Santa Ono saying that schools are being pressured to address reports of antisemitism on campus more urgently than Islamophobia.
In the leaked recording, the speaker alludes to the notion that the government could pressure the university by withholding federal funding.
"To have the government say that we will withhold your $2bn in federal funding if you don't address antisemitism," Ono purportedly said in the recording leaked by the Tahrir Coalition on 6 October.
"The government could call me tomorrow and say in a very unbalanced way the university is not doing enough to combat antisemitism."
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The person added that he could respond by saying that "the university is not doing enough to combat Islamophobia, and that's not what they wanna hear. So the whole situation is not balanced".
Further in the recording - it is unclear whether the comments were made at the same time and place as the previous comments - the speaker says there "are powerful groups" attempting to hold US universities accountable for not addressing antisemitism, adding that congressional hearings related to university campuses are "focused almost entirely on antisemitism".
Middle East Eye contacted the university for comment on the complaint and the leaked audio but didn't receive a response by the time of publication.
The University of Michigan was one of the many universities where students set up encampments on campus this past spring semester to protest against the Israeli war on Gaza and demand their institution divest investments in companies profiting off the war on Gaza and occupation of Palestine.
In May, police dressed in riot gear cleared the encampments, used pepper spray on protesters and arrested several people.
"We know that our university will use every avenue of repression possible to protect its investments in and profits from genocide but that our movement will be victorious," the Tahrir Coalition said in a statement shared with Middle East Eye.
"Santa Ono will never be able to wash himself clean of his crimes against humanity and his memory will forever stain the legacy of this university."
According to their website, the Tahrir Coalition is a student-led movement advocating for "divestment from and boycott of settler colonialism, occupation, mass incarceration, apartheid, and genocide, in Palestine and beyond", as well as for redirecting university funds. It counts 100 member organisations as part of its coalition.
The complaint filed by Cair-MI states that the rights group had reached out to the university multiple times to share concerns that Muslims, Palestinians, Arabs, South Asians, and their pro-Palestinian allies are being targeted with disparate treatment by the administration. Those attempts to reach out were left unanswered, Cair said in its letter.
As a result, the rights group is urging the Department of Education to investigate whether or not the University of Michigan is in compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ensures that any educational institution receiving federal funding will not "discriminate against individuals based on their race, color, or national origin".
“We urge President Ono to do what is right and ensure that the University of Michigan is in compliance with its obligations under federal and state law to ensure that no students, staff, or faculty experience a hostile environment on campus due to Islamophobia or anti-Arab bias," Amy Doukoure, Cair-MI staff attorney, said in a statement.
“There can be no excuse or exceptions for the University of Michigan’s failure to address Islamophobia on campus simply because of pressure from powerful groups or politicians with political agendas."
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