Bias Against U.S. Muslims Cited in Report to Civil Rights Panel

Muslims in the United States face widespread discrimination in the workplace and in society at large, a top Islamic scholar has told the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Azizah Al-Hibri, a professor of law at the University of Richmond in Virginia, told the rights panel at a Jan. 14 hearing that Muslims in the United States “have not had their own voice” and are defined for the general population by non-Muslims.

Al-Hibri, a founder of the Muslim American Bar Assn. who has handled numerous anti-bias cases, said bigotry against Muslims--especially women--is widespread in the corporate world, in academia and in the military.

Citing poll results, Al-Hibri said Islam “is the most negatively viewed religion in America” and that American Muslims have “suffered a great deal in terms of respect.”

She said Muslim women who follow the tradition of covering their heads in public often encounter discrimination.

“Either you’re not hired,” she said, “or, if you are, you’re put in the back room” out of public sight and denied promotions and advancements.

Al-Hibri made her comments as part of a panel briefing the eight-member civil rights commission called to examine current issues on religious civil rights.

Federal anti-bias laws prohibit discrimination in employment, schooling and a wide variety of other federally funded programs.

Also testifying were the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State; Meyer Eisenberg, chairman of the national civil rights committee of the Anti-Defamation League; William Scott Green, a professor of Judaic studies at the University of Rochester, and the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, president of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York.

Lynn told the commission that, despite the claims of some ultraconservatives, the Christian religion “is alive and well in America” and that, although there are incidents involving bias, “there is no campaign of religious bigotry” against Christians.

Those who complain of intolerance or bigotry by the government against Christianity, he said, “are complaining about the failure of the government to help them promote their causes.”

At the same time, Lynn said, there was bias against minority religions such as Islam and Hinduism and some sectarian minorities within Christianity, such as the Amish.

Eisenberg warned that religion-based hate crimes appear to be on the rise and that “early indications” from the ADL’s annual audit of hate crimes against Jews and Jewish institutions “show that the numbers are up and a disturbing trend continues.”