CA Muslim Students Bullied More With Trump As President: Study

CALIFORNIA -- A recent survey found an increase in bullying against Muslim students in California since Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency. A report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations found Muslim students are bullied at twice the rate as the national average.

The study also found that Crisis Text Line, a confidential text message system that helps people in crisis, saw a 600 percent increase in "people saying they were Muslim and experiencing anxiety, bullying, depression or any number of those issues." When Trump was announced as the winner of the election, the number rose by 900 percent.

The study was conducted by the four CAIR-CA offices covering the Greater Los Angeles, Sacramento Valley, San Diego and San Francisco Bay areas. It reached 1,041 Muslim students between the ages of 11 and
18 who were enrolled in public and private schools statewide.
Other findings included:

• 53 percent of respondents saying they were made fun of, verbally insulted or abused for being Muslim
• 26 percent of students reported being victims of cyberbullying
• 57 percent of students view their peers making offensive comments about Islam and Muslims online
• 36 percent of female respondents, reported having their Islamic head scarves (hijab) tugged, pulled or being offensively touched
• 30 percent of students reported that they felt their problems were solved by an adult, a decrease from 42 percent in 2014

In the survey, students also said they were called terrorists."They say that Trump is going to kick us terrorists out because all we do is 'Bomb,'" one survey respondent said.

The survey rings true for at least one Muslin student in Los Angeles County. Supervisor Hilda Solis said a week after the election that a student in the San Fernando Valley had "her head scarf yanked off before being called a 'terrorist.'"

The Council on American-Islamic Relations recommended that lawmakers take action against bullying, including adopting the proposed Safe Schools Improvement Act of 2017.The act would prohibit bullying and harassment based on a student's religion, race, color, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the study.

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