(VitalNews.org) – The United States government is opening an investigation into Emory University for anti-Muslim discrimination. The United States Education Department notified the Council of American Islamic Relations, Georgia, and Palestine Legal saying that it would be investigating claims made in a complaint.
The complaint was an eighteen-page document put together by the students at the University of Atlanta and represented under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. This is just one of six complaints made in recent weeks regarding discrimination in universities. The discrimination in question is specifically for those of Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab descent.
The students mainly named in the complaint are a part of the Students for Justice in Palestine, which is a group that was previously suspended last year after they called the October 7 events a “win for the Palestine residents.”
Complaints have also come from Columbia and Rutgers within the last ten days. The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights has received nearly three hundred and fifty complaints with what they call “shared ancestry” allegations and they also include antisemitic and Islamaphobic claims.
Emory University spokesperson Laura Diamond shared the University’s statement on the complaint which said, “Emory does not tolerate behavior or actions that threaten, harm or target individuals because of their identities or backgrounds.”
Students claimed that they’d left complaints directly to the university to no avail, which led them to file a civil rights investigation. Ibrahim, a junior at Emory, said, “Our point is there’s a hostile environment on campus. We didn’t want to go through a civil rights investigation. It’s time-consuming for us as students. But they left us with no other choice.”
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