Anti-Muslim incidents rose in Michigan amid war in Gaza, group reports

Michigan Muslims' civil rights complaints spiked to 350% in the three months after the start of the Israel-Hamas war last year, the Michigan chapter for Council on American-Islamic Relations announced Tuesday.

CAIR-MI's report, "Gaza & The Rise in Bigotry against Michigan Muslims," reflects the highest number of civil rights complaints reported to the state branch since its founding in 2000, executive director Dawud Walid said during a virtual press conference.

The national CAIR office also received 8,061 civil rights complaints in 2023, an unprecedented high in the national organization's history, Walid said.

Israel launched a military assault on Gaza after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage, the Associated Press reported. More than 32,000 Palestinians, many of whom are Muslim, have died in the war, while more than 500,000 are on the brink of starvation as Israel enforces tight borders and a slowed stream of humanitarian aid, the AP reported.

Walid cited political rhetoric as behind the national and statewide surge in complaints.

He referenced examples including Michigan U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg's recent comments that the U.S. approach to Gaza "should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick."

"This is the type of rhetoric that has led to the dehumanizing of Muslims here in the state of Michigan, which then leads to increased complaints here at our office," Walid said.

CAIR-MI received 495 civil rights complaints since October, pulling the fourth-highest amount of complaints compared to California, Ohio and New York, which had the first-, second- and third-most civil rights complaints recorded last year, Walid said.

In one case, the group received a complaint after a substitute teacher at the Early College Alliance in Ypsilanti allegedly told students, many of whom are Arab and Muslim, that Palestinians and Muslim men were naturally predisposed to commit crime, said Nour Ali, CAIR-MI director for safe spaces.

The district and school principal issued an apology to the class and said it would not hire the substitute teacher again after CAIR-MI stepped in, Ali said.

"We definitely try to maintain a welcoming space and an inclusive space," said ECA Principal Ellen Fischer. "We were really upset that it happened."

Administrators removed the substitute teacher from the list of subs they call on to fill teacher absences and also notified the third-party company that hired the substitute, Fischer said.

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CAIR-MI also worked with the FBI to investigate phoned-in terroristic threats against local Muslims and engaged more than 20 local schools and universities with panels informing students about their First Amendment right to protest, Ali said.

"We had a social worker just a few months ago who was posting on her public Facebook account that 'All Palestinians deserve to die,'" Ali said. "For someone who works in a field such as social work, this is obviously extremely problematic in the case of her working with an Arab or Muslim client and how that would be a very big case of a conflict of interest."

CAIR-MI has since spoken with the company that oversees the social worker and arranged for an updated employee training, she said.

FBI representatives could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

Reported anti-Muslim threats also extended to CAIR-MI staff, who received death threats in voicemails from Michael Shapiro, a 72-year-old Florida man, Walid said.

CAIR-MI's legal team, which offers free legal assistance to Michigan Muslims and Arabs, had to quickly accommodate an influx of Islamophobia and hate crime allegations after Oct. 7, said Amy Doukoure, a staff attorney.

Approximately 80% of civil rights complaints since then were related to hate crimes, while nearly 70% of the complaints were related to education discrimination, according to CAIR-MI's report.

CAIR-MI also filed a lawsuit on Thursday against a Jackson County Jail for failing to provide adequate amounts of food to an incarcerated Muslim fasting during Ramadan.

Meanwhile, Jewish people across the country and internationally have reported a corresponding rise in antisemitic incidents since the start of the war.

The Anti-Defamation League said it has recorded a surge of such incidents on college and university campuses.

The group has said the reports included graffiti, slurs or anonymous postings as well as violence, according to the Associated Press.

The ADL Center on Extremism reported a national 30% spike in antisemitic white supremacist propaganda in 2023 in an annual assessment.

Last month, the ADL said Michigan ranked No. 8 among states in the distribution of white supremacist propaganda and events organized or attended by white supremacists in 2023.