I never felt that I belonged in America until I came to Dartmouth. I am a non-citizen immigrant Muslim from Australia, so I'll leave you to imagine how each aspect of this identity elicits xenophobia from various segments of American society. However, I don't perceive myself to be an outsider on campus because basic inclusivity means that regardless of legal status and ethnic or religious affiliation, I am welcome to be a member of this community. Perhaps now you can empathize with the anger I feel over the recent news about New York Police Department surveillance of Muslim student associations at colleges in the Northeast, including Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania and New York University. The Muslim community being targeted like this means that I am marginalized in the very space where I found the most acceptance from my peers (and myself) of my identity as a Muslim.
I moved to the United States only months before 9/11 and, in all honesty, I was not able to distinguish the Empire State Building from one of the World Trade Center towers. It still surprises me that a landmark with which I was so unfamiliar became heavily associated with my experience as a Muslim in the United States. After hearing many students at my middle school express rancor toward Muslims following the attacks, I became smart enough (or afraid enough) to stay silent about my faith. I remember how conflicted I felt when my eighth-grade history teacher asked our class for a volunteer to bring in a Quran. On one hand I wanted to share with the class a Quran of which I was particularly proud because my grandfather had presented it to me when I had finished my first complete recitation. However, as I sat in my chair, I tried to convince myself that bringing a Quran to school would be a logistical nightmare. Would I be able to fit it in my backpack or locker? In the end, I didn't volunteer to bring my Quran to class. Let's be real, though: I had enough self-awareness to understand my real motive for not raising my hand I was afraid to draw attention to myself as a Muslim. This was two years after 9/11.
I came to Dartmouth for International Student Orientation and met a fellow Muslim who was also celebrating Ramadan. I had never been able to relate to anyone in high school about fasting, but here was a student with whom I could commiserate over staying hungry through painfully long freshman floor meetings. More unexpected than that, though, was the institutional support the College provided for Muslims: Halal and Kosher food options in the Pavillion, a prayer room and a Muslim students' association called Al-Nur. Over the next couple of years, I met many students who performed impressive duties for the College, who were prominent members of campus groups and who referred to themselves proudly as Muslims. The Muslim community, my peers and my professors were supportive of my faith background and helped me shed my hesitation to confidently articulate my identity as a Muslim.
It troubles me immensely that the community in which I have found a welcoming space to express myself could now be under surveillance. Where I could once post freely on the Al-Nur Facebook page, I will now have to evaluate whether or not my comments could appear suspicious to an outsider. Furthermore, I will have to think of what consequences may face a student as a result of having a surveillance file open in his or her name. Instead of making our campus safer, the NYPD is debasing any existing sense of safety.
In response to these egregious surveillance operations, I want two things to happen at Dartmouth. First, I encourage students to discuss the topic of NYPD surveillance with Muslim students. Perhaps once students and community members are able to put a face and a personal relationship to this piece of news, we will be able to collectively shoulder the burden of familiarizing and educating one another about the issues facing the Muslim community. Second, I encourage President Jim Yong Kim to write a statement for the Dartmouth community, not in support for Al-Nur, but in support for the civil liberties of all campus organizations whose members could face similar discrimination.
