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Press Mentions

  • When I Look at Zohran Mamdani,Here’s What I See [NYT]

    A few days before Zohran Mamdani’s decisive victory in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York, a friend and I were speculating about his chances of winning. We indulged in a moment of giddy optimism at the prospect that a Muslim man might actually become the mayor of the city we live in. With…

     

  • A Dangerous Moment [Al Jazeera]

    Civil liberties organisations and academics have raised alarm at the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student activist at Columbia University, calling it a serious breach of free-speech rights under the administration of President Donald Trump. . . . Others also worry that Trump’s crackdown on protesters will not remain limited to supporters of Palestine.…

     

  • Professor Sahar Aziz delivers lecture on how racialization of the Israel-Hamas war is causing Islamophobia [WashU]

    Professor Sahar Aziz delivered a lecture and answered audience questions about the racialization of the Israel-Hamas war, particularly by political parties in the United States. The event, titled “The Palestine Taboo: Race, Islamophobia, and Free Speech,” was the first John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics event of the year. Sept. 23.  Professor of…

     

  • Amid Gaza Protests, Universities are Cracking Down on a Celebrated Protest Tactic: Sit-Ins [The Intercept]

    On October 25, hundreds of people participated in a sit-in at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, calling on school administrators to cut ties with weapons manufacturers involved in Israel’s occupation of Palestine. It was part of a wave of activism around Israel’s siege of Gaza on university campuses around the country, and it ended in…

     

  • Unconditional Supporters of Israel Know the Facts Are Not on Their Side [Jacobin]

    On Saturday, November 4, some three hundred thousand people marched in Washington, DC, in solidarity with Palestinians. It was the largest pro-Palestine march in US history, a heartening sign that the McCarthyite backlash to solidarity with Palestinians in the face of Israel’s ongoing onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip has not accomplished its aims. Rather than cowing critics of…

     

  • Why pro-Palestinian demonstrations are popping up on college campuses [Scripps]

    “We’ve seen quite a bit of sympathy for Palestinian civilians,” said Sahar Aziz, a law school professor and director of the Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers University. “They recognize that Palestinians have grievances. Many of these young people don’t rely on formal educational institutions for information. And this is one of those topics where…

     

  • ‘Systematically erased’: Middle Eastern and North African women and LGBTQ+ Americans don’t see themselves in U.S. data [the19th]

    There is no exact definition of MENA by a group like the United Nations, but it generally includes countries as far north as Turkey that border the Mediterranean Sea. While many religions and ethnicities are represented in this region, shared Arab ancestry or Islamic identity is sometimes used as a way to group countries over…

     

  • NJ Muslim Mayor Who Was Denied White House Entry [Gothamist]

    A Muslim mayor in New Jersey is calling for an end to the U.S. government’s terror watch lists after he was barred from a celebration at the White House. Mohamed Khairullah — in his fifth term as Prospect Park’s mayor, and first elected to the borough’s council in 2001 — was on his way to…

     

  • Why the 2022 Election was Historic for Muslim Women’s Representation [The 19th]

    A record number of Muslim women ran for office in 2022 — and they won. The election cycle made history with 153 Muslim candidates on the general ballot, per a report released by Jetpac Resource Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Sixty-one percent of Muslim women candidates won, compared with 56 percent of Muslim men. Mauree…

     

  • Teacher at Center of Hijab Uproar Sues Olympic Medalist for Defamation [New York Times]

    A seconds-long interaction in a New Jersey classroom unleashed a national firestorm last October as it ricocheted across social media platforms. A 7-year-old girl had come home from school upset, telling her mother that her teacher in Maplewood, N.J., had tried to pull off the hijab the girl wears as an observant Muslim. Her mother…

     

  • She was Fired for Being Publicly Pro-Palestinian [Philadelphia Inquirer]

    “This particular case is going to the heart of the American fundamental right to politically dissent, to express your beliefs,” said Sahar Aziz, a Rutgers Law professor and author of The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom. “And when you belong to a group that’s not afforded those beliefs at equal levels as everyone…

     

  • France burkini ban challenged in country’s top court [The Independent]

    France’s top court is set to deliver a ruling on the controversial burkini ban after hearing an appeal by the city of Grenoble to allow the bathing suit in public pools. Grenoble formally allowed women to wear the full-length swimwear in state pools in May, 10 years after a local ban on the burkini was introduced in several French cities. But…

     

  • Where Migrants Suffered Matters at the U.S.-Mexico Border [TIME]

    On March 11, as the number of Ukrainians arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border began to tick up, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a special memo advising border officials that they could, on a case-by-case basis, offer that particular group special treatment. Unlike tens of thousands of other migrants, fleeing violence in other countries, border…

     

  • What Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Nomination Means for Higher Ed [Diverse]

    If Jackson becomes a Supreme Court Justice, the ideological balance of the Court would not change. The current 6-3 conservative-majority would still be in place. However, there would be other firsts. Jackson would be one of four female Justices, three of whom would have been nominated by Democratic presidents. Sahar Aziz, who is also the…

     

  • The U.S. census sees Middle Eastern and North African people as white. Many don’t [NPR]

    The complicated relationship many people with MENA origins have with whiteness is entangled with a naturalization system in the U.S. that, until 1952, imposed racial restrictions on which immigrants could become citizens. First arriving in large numbers in the late 1800s, the earliest generations of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa saw whiteness…