As Americans’ perceptions of Islam grow increasingly negative, Muslim students and professors find themselves educating their college communities

By Dina M. Horwedel

It’s not easy being a Muslim student or professor on a U.S. college campus these days. Classmates and colleagues are curious and filled with questions. Some members of campus communities have reported being verbally harassed and made to feel uncomfortable, finding themselves in the role of having to educate their peers about and defend Islam. Although some tire of the burden, others embrace the opportunity to increase awareness and understanding.

Katayoun Donnelly, a third-year law student at the University of Denver and a native of Iran, says she constantly fields questions about her native country these days. In her opinion, Americans’ lack of knowledge about Islam and Arabic countries stems from a cultural disinterest in foreign issues.

“I know it’s not their [Americans’] fault, so I try to be open and answer questions,” she says. “Unless everyone, Americans and non-Americans alike, decide to humanize other people that live in the rest of the world, nothing is going to change.”

A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted earlier this year found that 46 percent of Americans have a negative view of Islam. In the months immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, that number was only 39 percent. When asked, 58 percent of those polled said there are more violent extremists within Islam than in other religions.

With perceptions as they are, it’s understandable that Nazia Ahmed, a senior political science and history major at the University of Connecticut, avoids conversations on sensitive topics, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But when the subject comes up in her political science courses, Ahmed, who is Pakistani but born in the United States, often finds herself thrust into the spotlight.