A.N.S.W.E.R. Florida

FAU Employee spits on Muslim student: Why won’t FAU condemn racism and discrimination on campus?

On October 30^th, 2007 FAU students and members of the community united to protest against the hateful and racist ideas of Daniel Pipes, who was invited by Middle East and National Security (MEANS), a student organization at FAU. The students conducted a silent protest and held banners that resembled the ideas they wanted to portray to the audience” signs read “No to racism, No to Xenophobic speech”, “Spread love, not hate”, and “Guilty cause I’m Muslim?” while standing quietly and respectfully with their banners, students faced harassment by several members of the Pipes audience who yelled “Go back to your country”, “I see you ready for Halloween” while pointing to a woman wearing a Hijab (headscarf), and “You don’t belong here”.

One of the audience members, an FAU employee, went so far as to spit on one of the Muslim students ...

We see this hate incident not as the act of one intolerant employee but rather as an atmosphere on the FAU campus where openly expressing anti-Muslim sentiment has become acceptable. The university must provide cultural tolerance training to everyone employed by the university. The training should be focused on creating an atmosphere of real cultural acceptance and understanding. More ...