As my last civic issues post, I want to talk about the future, and how some people’s futures may be different, or stunted, merely because they have a different race or religion. Unfortunately, in a place meant to education and provide hope for one’s future, there has been bias present against Muslim/Middle-Eastern students, making it hard to move on and truly get an education. In some cases, it is the teacher’s duty to help their students lose these prejudices, unjust biases towards other people, and see everyone as equal regardless of how they look.

Most of the issues that occur in places of education or schooling are not started by educators or teachers alike, but rather the other students present in classrooms or lecture halls, creating a very hostile, unsafe environment for people, especially Muslim/Middle-Eastern people. “When Basir Jamil was 8 years old in 2001, he hated the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center, smashed into the Pentagon and downed an airplane full of people in rural Pennsylvania. So when he was called the same thing—a terrorist—a few years later in middle school, he was shocked.” While Basir Jamil’s experience is in no way okay or should be tolerated, unfortunately, it is not the worst experience someone has had in school.

On the website Tolerance.org, they attempt to show others why tolerance is important and should be enforced. There, they have an unfortunate list of just a few things that have happened to Muslim/Middle-Eastern people in their schooling environment. It says:

• In St. Cloud, Minn., a high school student created a short-lived Facebook group called “I hate the Somalians at Tech High.” The area is home to one of the largest groups of Somali refugees in the country, many of whom are Muslim.
• In Oklahoma, a student was suspended after wearing a hijab, or headscarf, at school on September 11, although she had worn it for weeks before.
• In Massachusetts, when a Cambridge store burned down, Muslim high school students were asked by classmates if they bombed the store.
• In New York, four high school students were charged with a hate crime after spending more than a year bullying a Muslim classmate, occasionally beating him and calling him a terrorist.

Obviously, because of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, there was an increased amount of fear surrounding Muslim/Middle-Eastern people. While this is an incredibly unfortunate, misguided side effect of these attacks, it justifies to these Islamophobic (an exaggerated fear, hatred and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes) people their actions, though no act of hate or intolerance is justified.

In a study done by the University of Nebraska, they found, ” between 2015-2017 about Islamophobia and schools, we discovered 55 documented cases of “Islamophobia” in the US and 61 in North America, and these account for only the ones reported in major newspapers, so they do not include cases that were not reported regionally or nationally, and in many of the federally refugee designated sites.” Further, it is brought up, “As William Dalrymple explained in a follow-up in The New York Times, this renewal of those fears stems from the American tendency to see the Islamic world as a “single, terrifying monolith” — prejudicial perceptions that continue to result in the marginalization of Muslims from the
social, political, and public life of the nation and our schools.”

According to NPR.org: “Muslim children are more likely to be bullied in school than children of other faiths. A new survey by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) reveals that 42 percent of Muslims with children in K–12 schools report bullying of their children because of their faith, compared with 23 percent of Jewish and 20 percent of Protestant parents.” Even effects of the previous Presidential election had an effect on the school environment, especially regarding Muslim/Middle-Eastern children, many teachers have said.

If these are words that children are hearing their parents, aunts or uncles use, they are most likely going to be repeated, as children are very good at imitation. The place where these children will repeat these words is in their sole social atmosphere, which is school, and towards other children. Not only does this result in a hostile atmosphere, but it discourages these Muslim/Middle-Eastern children to continue their education and establish a successful, fulfilling future.

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In this weird, trying time of dealing with a global pandemic, health care and health service providers have been in the forefront in countless people’s minds. It is the expectation of every person that if they need health care, a doctor, a hospital etc. they will receive the best possible care available to them, and not have to worry about mediocre care based on their race, religion, or any kind of other appearance.

For the sake of explaining and dissecting the issues of health care bias, I will be focusing on Middle-Eastern Muslim people. According to a study conducted by Mary Brigid Martin PhD, RN-BC, CTN-A, a certified transcultural nurse, it was found that “Almost one-third of Muslims in the Journal of Muslim Mental Health said they had perceived being discriminated against in a health-care setting.” Source.

Within this same study, it was found “To inquire if participants experienced discrimination in the health care setting, item number 13 elicited a “Yes/No” response: Did you ever feel that you were discriminated against in the health care setting because you are Muslim? A total of 62 (27.6%) responded “Yes” and 163 (72.4%) responded “No”.” Source. While 27.6% of the responses within the sample surveyed said that they felt as if they were discriminated against because they were Muslim is less than those that felt non-discriminated against, that does not mean there is not an issue. That means that there is still 27.6% of an issue, and even more because there are millions of Muslims that were not surveyed in this study, which must be considered.

A Muslim family recounts a very traumatic time in November of 2019 in which they faced discrimination in a hospital. “A Muslim family went to a hospital in Northern Virginia to celebrate a joyous occasion: the birth of a newborn baby. But they say hospital staff humiliated them by telling them they looked “scary,” and threatened to kick them out.” They continue, “”He screams and he says, ‘You’re not allowed to be here!’ And then he said, ‘You know, you look scary,'” she recalled. “I was shocked, like, ‘Did he say that?'” The story, unfortunately, continued in a very poor way, “”It was surprising to me. First of all, we weren’t threatening in any way. No one had done anything,” Ahmed Zahr said. Source.

According to Quality Interactions, a blog created for health care professionals, “Unconscious (or implicit) bias occurs when this automatic processing is influenced by stereotypes, and therefore those stereotypes impact your actions and judgments.” While this is very true, the post continues, “Unconscious bias can lead to false assumptions and negative outcomes. This is especially dangerous in healthcare, where decisions can mean life or death. As more attention is paid to health disparities in the United States, there is increasing evidence that unconscious bias leads to negative outcomes for minority groups in healthcare settings. This in turn contributes to health disparities, in which certain groups experience inequalities in the provision of and access to healthcare.”

It is important for health care providers to acknowledge that this unconscious bias is most likely present in their judgement, because acknowledging that the bias is present is the first step in getting rid of this unfair judgement. If someone refuses to accept that there may be bias present in their judgement, than they will not make the proper changes and adjustments when it is needed to provide the best possible care. Health care providers must acknowledge that their job to care for others does not just include certain people with certain stories and backgrounds, but includes everybody who walks, rolls, or crawls through their doors.

To help health care workplaces eliminate judgement and discrimination, there must be classes put in place, and immediate revocation of medical license if an incident like this occurs. Hate should not be present in a place where hope must be the leading force.