University of Cincinnati Event Targeted with Islamophobic Slurs, Sparking Calls for Action

IQNA – An evening that was supposed to be about meaningful conversations and activism turned sour after a Palestinian student group’s flyer was defaced with Islamophobic rhetoric at the University of Cincinnati on Thursday.

The tampered-with flyer for Thursday night’s “Stories of the West Bank” event, hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine, was found in the prayer room at UC’s Langsam Library.

Written on it were multiple Islamophobic slurs, such as “terrorist sympathizers,” and words that described the erasure of Palestine from the global map. The QR code for the event was also ripped off.

“To put it in the prayer room where they know the majority of Muslim students have to pray five times a day every day, where there’s literally a Torah next to a Quran and there are holy symbols and artifacts of every religion there was just a whole other level of distasteful,” said SJP UC President Laila Shaikh.

SJP posted the flyer online, stating that it is a “clear action of discrimination and harassment.”

This is not the first time someone has torn down or defaced the group’s flyers. According to the organization, it has happened “all semester.”

When she co-founded SJP, Shaikh said her goal was to condemn human rights violations and end violence in Gaza and the West Bank. But now, that violence has touched many Palestinian Americans, she said.

“All of my family has unfortunately passed away,” she explained. “I have no living family members left in the West Bank and Gaza at this point. I know I had extended family there before October 7, and they all unfortunately passed.”

Shaikh says it is also disappointing that she has to regularly defend the student group from accusations of being antisemitic, anti-Israel or pro-violence while they try to bring attention to the thousands of people dying.

“The question that we’re always posed with is anti-Israel rhetoric. I think we should have an anti-killing human beings rhetoric instead. Our organization and many of the organizers will gladly hold anyone accountable who is supporting that,” she said.

SJP members and other students are in the process of writing letters to UC’s Office of Equal Opportunity to address the problem and find a solution.

Islamophobia is on the rise in the U.S. According to a 2024 report by the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the organization received 8,061 complaints nationwide in 2023 - a 56% increase since 2022.

The number of complaints appeared to jump by more than half in October and November of 2023, based on the report.

Of those thousands of complaints, Ohio had the second-highest number of reports among 49 other states.

Vice Chair of the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati Dr. Samina Sohail says members in her congregation have experienced Islamophobia recently too, such as microaggressions, and even retaliation at work.

“Things are just escalating - every day is scary. We don’t have time to look back and say, ‘this is a sad day and a bad year’ because every day just gets worse,” Dr. Sohail told FOX19 NOW in October. “I know some people who have lost [their] jobs due to their social media posts on Palestine.”

That fear has grown since Oct. 7, 2023, and the recent war in Lebanon as the U.S. continues its weapons support for the Israeli regime.

Source: Fox19 Now