UMich faculty surveys Muslim communities on campus climate

Since February, a small group of University of Michigan faculty have been surveying campus climate in Arab, Muslim and pro-Palestinian communities in the context of the Israeli military campaign in Gaza since the fall of 2023. The survey assesses opinions on the University’s handling of campus protests, safeguarding of University values in the face of internal and external pressures and efforts to curtail discrimination on the basis of religion and ethnicity. The survey is open to students, alumni, faculty, staff and parents on all three U-M campuses.

This year’s survey serves as a follow-up to the 2024 Palestinian, Arab and Muslim U-M Communities’ Survey, which received over 1,400 respondents. According to last year’s survey report, 90% of respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the University’s communications regarding Gaza and 89% deemed the University’s efforts to combat Islamophobia inadequate. 

In an email to The Michigan Daily, Nancy Khalil, assistant professor of American culture and survey researcher, wrote about the significance of collecting this campus climate research amid the ongoing Israeli military campaign in Gaza.

“When particular communities are facing added targeting, like the Asian community during the Covid pandemic, or Muslims and Arabs during the genocide in Palestine, it is even more critical to conduct research and understand what they’re contending with and how they need support,” Khalil wrote. “The University of Michigan has a lot of room to improve in the research it can conduct on its various communities.”

LSA junior Minahil Raheel, co-chair of the Muslim Coalition, told The Daily in an interview the absence of acknowledgement towards Arab and Muslim communities on campus in University President Santa Ono’s communications contributed to the negative campus climate in these communities.

“His response to the genocide in Gaza eighteen months ago created the climate now on campus where Islamophobia thrives unchecked, and it contributes to the marginalization and silencing and erasure of our communities,” Raheel said. “In the first few emails, (Ono) didn’t even mention the word Palestine. He talked about his reaching out to Israeli educational institutions to offer support and his partnership, even though he hadn’t done anything to reach out to the community of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim adjacent students on campus.” 

In an interview with The Daily, Basit Zafar, economics professor and survey researcher, spoke about Ono’s comments at the Anti-Defamation League’s “Never is Now” summit regarding his decision to cancel the vote on two Central Student Government ballot proposals. AR 13-025 called on the University to investigate their investments in “apartheid regimes” globally and to acknowledge the suffering in Palestine. The counter-proposal, AR 13-026, called upon CSG to request the University to condemn Hamas and support students affected by violence in both Gaza and Israel. 

Zafar said the cancellation of the vote calls into question the future of democratic institutions on campus under President Donald Trump.

“On our campuses there has been — even pre-Trump — a basic disregard for basic principles of shared governance or basic rights,” Zafar said. “(If you listen to) President Ono’s comments at the ADL conference in which he takes responsibility for shutting down a student election … a year and a half ago during the Democratic administration which was not anti-higher education,  then what hope would you have in the current climate?”

Zafar said research on campus climate is important to the University’s ability to address current issues within campus communities.

“We have great students, great resources, a lot of academic expertise, and we could be doing so much better,” Zafar said. “The climate that we have right now is not sustainable. It’s not a good equilibrium that we’re in where there is a total breakdown of trust between students and administration, between faculty and administration. Our hope is by highlighting this, it will become harder for administrators to ignore what is happening on campus.”

Daily Staff Reporter Noor Khanafer can be reached at noorkk@umich.edu.