The Council on American-Islamic Relations is the largest American Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States. CAIR’s mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil liberties, promote justice, and empower American Muslims. CAIR California is the organization’s largest and oldest chapter, with offices in the Greater Los Angeles Area, the Sacramento Valley / Central California, San Diego, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
The respondents of the survey were diverse in terms of their geographic location, gender identity, and race/ethnicity. 38.53% reported being from the Greater Los Angeles area (covering the counties of Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Riverside); 37.66% reported being from the San Francisco Bay area (covering the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, and Sonoma); 12.12% reported being from the Sacramento Valley/Central California area (covering the counties of Butte, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Madera, Fresno, and Tulare); and 9.96% reported being from the San Diego area (covering the counties of San Diego and Imperial).
53.47% of respondents identified as female and 44.36% identified as male. The respondents were also diverse across racial and ethnic identities. The two racial/ ethnic identities that respondents reported the most were South Asian (40.52%) and Middle Eastern (24.49%).
In March 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic forced the majority of California students into remote learning, which greatly impacted bullying patterns.
47.1% of respondents reported being bullied for being Muslim from August 2018 to March 2020, the period preceding the remote learning transition. This indicates an upward trend of bullying incidents as compared to CAIR-CA's 2019 report, which found that an already high percentage of students (40.04%) reported anti-Muslim bullying. The 2019 report evaluated the school climate for California Muslim students between 2016 and mid-2018..
However, once schools switched to remote learning in March 2020, the percentage of reported bullying incidents dropped significantly across all mediums. 26.22% of respondents reported being bullied at school for being Muslim from March 2020 to August 2021. While this is still a significant percentage, this represents a notable decrease from the over year-and-a-half period prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic decreased the frequency of inperson interactions amongst students and shifted bullying dynamics. Studies have found that the lack of in-person interactions amongst students led to a decrease in bullying in all forms.6 In-person interaction amongst students is an important mechanism underlying not only in-person school bullying, but also cyberbullying.7 Research suggests that both in-person bullying and cyberbullying decreased during the school years affected by the pandemic.8 The decrease in all forms of bullying is consistent with prior evidence that cyberbullying is strongly associated with in-person school bullying and primarily reflects in-person bullying enacted through a different medium.9 As such, the drop in bullying across all mediums is not surprising given that California had the lowest rate of in-person school attendance across the country since the pandemic began.10
Many respondents highlighted that the lack of in-person interactions at school led to a decrease in bullying in all of its forms. For example, a 15-year-old male public school student from Orange County stated: "Due to online school my interaction with non-Muslims has been restricted, so I rarely have time to interact with them, let alone be bullied." Notably, a 14-year-old female charter school student from Los Angeles County provided the following astute observation: "I think that even though there is still online connection, cyber bullying usually happens because of personal interactions." Similarly, a 17-year-old male public school student from Alameda County reported: "Bullying has decreased because there are less opportunities to talk in class, and of course not having transition periods or lunch breaks."
In fact, when asked whether online teaching has increased or decreased the respondents experiences of bullying, only 3.94% of respondents indicated that bullying had increased.
The significant decrease of bullying incidents during the pandemic was also reflected in instances of bystander reporting. 39.46% of students reported seeing another student being bullied for being Muslim from August 2018 to March 2020. This percentage was nearly identical to the 39.01% of students who reported seeing another student being bullied for being Muslim in CAIR-CA's 2019 report. However, from March 2020 to August 2021, only 23.13% of respondents reported seeing another student at school being bullied for being Muslim. Of the respondents who reported witnessing bullying from March 2020 to August 2021, 51.7% witnessed the bullying only on rare occasions, approximately one to two times a year.
Male and female respondents experienced bullying at almost the same rate, with males experiencing bullying at a slightly higher percentage. 46% of female respondents reported being bullied from August 2018 to March 2020. 47.46% of male respondents reported being bullied during this same time period. 25.75% of female respondents reported being bullied from March 2020 to August 2021, while 26.12% of males reported being bullied during this same time period.
From 2018 to the present, Muslim students reported high levels of bullying, Islamophobia, and harassment in various aspects of their school lives, both online and off.
FIRST, respondents reported high percentages of discomfort and feeling unsafe because of their Muslim identity and missing a considerable amount of school. 10.23% of all respondents disagreed with the statement that they felt "safe, welcome, and respected at [their] school." This percentage is higher than the 8.63% of respondents who disagreed with the statement in the 2019 report. Despite only 10.23% of respondents disagreeing with that statement, in response to the question "How often have you felt unsafe, unwelcome, or uncomfortable at school because of your Muslim identity," 55.73% of respondents reported feeling unsafe, unwelcome, or uncomfortable at school. Furthermore, 19.61% of respondents reported missing school because they were unsafe, unwelcome, or uncomfortable at school – compared to only 13.76% of respondents in CAIR-CA's 2019 Report.
SECOND, despite the lower reported percentages of bullying for female respondents, female students have their own unique challenges when it comes to bullying, especially for those female students who wear hijab. Among female respondents who wear hijab, 30.12% of them indicated that they have had their hijab tugged, pulled, or offensively touched by another student.
THIRD, Muslim students continue to report high levels of being victims of Islamophobic content posted by other students online. Despite the decrease in bullying in general during the COVID-19 pandemic, when looking at the entire reporting period of the survey (from August 2018 to August 2021) 29.72% of respondents reported that a student at school made offensive comments or posts about Islam or Muslims directly to them on social media. This is up from 12.19% of respondents in CAIR-CA's 2019 report. Additionally, 35.68% responded that other students at their school made offensive comments about Islam or Muslims in general on social media. This reported percentage is consistent with the 34.99% of respondents in the 2019 report who represented that they had seen other students post social media posts containing offensive comments about Islam or Muslims in general. Those who reported being victims of offensive comments about Islam or Muslims online felt unsafe at school at higher rates. 25.44% of respondents who reported being victims of offensive online comments disagreed with the statement that they felt "safe, welcome, and respected at [their] school" compared to only 3.77% of respondents who had not been the victim of online bullying who disagreed with the statement.
FOURTH, the survey results show that Islamophobic harassment and comments from teachers and other school personnel are real concerns among Muslim students in California. 23.50% of respondents reported that a teacher, administrator, or other adult at their school made offensive comments about Islam or Muslims. 33% of the students who reported an adult at their school making offensive comments about Islam or Muslims in general reported that these incidents occurred three to six times per year or more. Similarly, 35.06% of the students who reported a teacher or administrator, or other adult making offensive comments about Islam or Muslims directly towards them reported that these incidents occurred three to six times per year or more.
CAIR-CA often receives reports from students and their families of teachers making problematic and Islamophobic comments when discussing world events such as the anniversary of September 11, 2001 ("9/11"). T his was reflected in many of the comments provided by respondents. For example, a 14-year-old female publicschool student from Alameda County noted that her teacher made "offensive 9/11 references." Another student, a 17-year-old female public-school student in Los Angeles County reported that her teacher stated Islam is a "religion of blood and war and that all we want is the end [of] all humans." In fact, approximately one in five respondents disagreed with the statement that "When my teachers teach lessons about Islam or Muslims, they did so in a neutral, fair, and factual manner."
Other students reported that teachers made inappropriate comments targeting the student directly. For example, a 16-year-old female public-school student from Orange County reported that a teacher implied that a student who donned the hijab, the Islamic headscarf, "was a terrorist." Similarly, a 16-year-old female public-school student from Orange County reported that her "teacher attacked [her] in front of [her] class saying things like ‘terrorist’ and ‘you don’t belong here.’" Approximately one in five respondents who reported anti-Muslim bullying incidents to adults at their school indicated this did not help solve the issue.
Finally, students who responded affirmatively to the question whether a teacher, administrator, or other adult at school made offensive comments about Islam or Muslims experienced higher percentages of discomfort at schools. Of those who responded affirmatively to the question regarding offensive Islamophobic comments from adults, 26.12% disagreed with the statement "I feel safe, welcome, and respected at my school." Only 5.31% of students who had not experienced an adult at their school making an offensive comment about Islam or Muslims disagreed with the statement "I feel safe, welcome, and respected at my school." Respondents who were subjected to Islamophobic comments from adults reported a much higher rate of not feeling safe, welcome, and respected at school when compared to those who had not experienced Islamophobic comments from adults at school.
The students who reported that an adult made an offensive comment about Islam or Muslims also reported that 41.35% of them missed school because they felt unsafe, unwelcome, or uncomfortable at school. Only 12.93% of respondents who were not subjected to Islamophobic comments from an adult reported missing school because they felt unsafe, unwelcome, or uncomfortable at school. Moreover, students who reported an adult making an offensive comment about Islam or Muslims also disagreed with the statement, "I feel comfortable letting teachers and classmates know that I am Muslim" at 24.06%, compared to only 5.09% of respondents who did not report an adult making an offensive comment about Islam or Muslims disagreed with that statement.
Within educational settings, teachers, administrators, and other school employees owe a duty of care to students. These survey results show that denigrating treatment by educators and school adults directly contributes to Muslim students lack of security and comfort at school. These survey results are indicative of the power and influence school adults can exert on already vulnerable Muslim students.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
