How Much Discrimination Do Muslims Face in America?

Former President Trump may have said he wants to ban Muslims from entering America, but it would be impossible to take the America out of Muslims: Despite heightened anxiety around their place in U.S. culture, their experiences largely mirror those of other religious groups.

Some racial tensions play out today in U.S. Muslim communities. The racial justice protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd, for instance, brought many Muslims to the streets to condemn racism. But they also spurred an internal reckoning about racial equity among Muslims, including the treatment of Black Muslims. Muslims perceive widespread hostility toward their faith. At the same time, experiences of discrimination haven’t necessarily changed that much.

The researchers found that Muslims perceive significant bias against them. Seventy-five percent of respondents said there’s “a lot” of discrimination against Muslims in the U.S. especially from Republicans and white evangelicals. Across the United States, mosques are vandalized, local government officials denounce Islam, and state legislatures debate anti-Muslim laws. Such anti-Muslim activities have increased markedly since late 2015.

Muslim women have been prohibited from wearing their head coverings in a number of contexts. They have been harassed, fired from jobs, denied access to public places, and otherwise discriminated against because they wear hijab. Because of their visibility, Muslim women who wear hijab face particular exposure to discrimination and have increasingly been targets for harassment in the aftermath of September 11. While it is difficult to obtain accurate statistics about discriminatory incidents, reported instances of discrimination appear to be on the rise.

At work: Muslim women have been denied the right to wear a headscarf while working as police officers and in other occupations. Women also have been fired for refusing to remove their headscarves. Teachers in public school have been prevented from wearing religious garb, a bar that has been authorized by some state statutes and upheld by some courts.

Intolerance and discrimination against Muslims are not new, but manifestations of these phenomena appear to have been on the rise in recent years. Muslims might experience verbal harassment or be the targets of hate speech, violent attacks or religious profiling. As a result, many Muslims experience a range of discrimination, including verbal harassment, hate speech, violent attacks, and religious profiling. Many are also confronted with a lack of equal opportunities in employment, housing, health care, and education, and face restrictions on the public expression of their religion.

In the last ten years, the Muslim community has seen a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment, anti-Muslim discrimination, and policies that unfairly impact American Muslims. One example is the oftentimes-secret placement of Muslim Americans on government watch lists. Many Arab and Muslim Americans experienced heightened prejudice, hostility, and discrimination, despite the fact that, after the horrid September attack, Arab and Muslims played a significant role, along with all sorts of Americans, in helping keep the nation safe.

While the United States government has taken important steps to work with the American Muslim community, many American Muslims still feel their civil rights are violated through stereotyping, profiling, and other forms of discrimination and are reluctant to report civil rights and labor violations.

There has been a backlash against Americans identified as, or mistakenly perceived to be, Muslim and/or Arab. For example, Muslims and people thought to be Muslim have been removed from airline flights because fellow passengers were nervous or fearful; mosques have been subjected to vandalism and arson; persons suspected of being Arab or Muslim have been subjected to violent, sometimes fatal attacks.