Cindy McNulty says she is getting increasingly worried about anti-Muslim sentiment intensifying across America.
The Oakland Catholic High School social studies teacher believes it's her duty to counter misinformation and prejudice targeting minority groups such as Muslims, particularly since many students lack exposure to people of diverse religious and cultural backgrounds. At Oakland Catholic, which enrolls about 550 girls, not all of whom are Catholic, McNulty knows of one Muslim student.
“Educators are very much on the front lines of these cultural conflicts,” said McNulty, “and so, it's important for us to have a very accurate and nuanced understanding about Islam as a lived religion, as opposed to the kind of sensational, simplistic images that you get in a lot of mainstream media.”
This weekend, McNulty and several of her students are set to join about 200 students, police officers, social workers, health care professionals and community members at a university-level class about Muslims in America at University of Pittsburgh's David Lawrence Hall.
The so-called “mini-course” — free and open to the public as part of an annual program sponsored by Pitt's Global Studies Center and Carnegie Mellon University — will delve into U.S.-Muslim issues covering cultural, political, economic, societal and historical contexts.
The course was not developed in response to rhetoric on the presidential campaign trail, but its organizers say recent national conversations about Muslims, refugees and terror attacks such as those in Paris and San Bernardino, have amped up interest and made the class especially timely. Last week, GOP front-runner Donald Trump, stood by his incendiary remarks that Islam “hates” America. In December, Trump triggered “emergency” meetings among interfaith groups across Western Pennsylvania when he called for “a complete and total shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States. His call resonated with millions of Americans.
“I don't think I've ever seen an election-time rhetoric as misinformed as I see it now,” said Dalia Mogahed, one of the mini-course's presenters and director of the Washington-based Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a nonpartisan policy group and Muslim advocacy organization formed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
As part of her Saturday session, “American Muslims By the Numbers,” Mogahed plans to discuss a poll commissioned by her institute set for release Tuesday. Among its findings: Muslims are as likely as Protestants to have a strong American identity, and Muslim Americans are more likely than Americans with weak religious identities to say being an American is important to how they think of themselves.
Greater Pittsburgh was home to about 7,500 Muslims in 2010, or about 0.3 percent of the U.S. census-defined metro population, according to the latest survey by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.
Lecturer Saeed Khan, a Wayne State University professor who teaches Islamic history and political thought, is leading a Saturday session titled, “Moral Panics and Islamophobia in the U.S.”
“Muslims in America represent the low-hanging fruit, so to speak, when it comes to the impunity by which people can then demonize — especially when they are encouraged to do so by people running for the highest office in the country,” Khan said. “My hopes are that people do come away with a greater clarity and understanding of a very, very complex issue.”
Sessions will cover Muslim immigration to the United States, the blending of American and Islamic cultures and tensions between Islamic beliefs and democracy.
The mini-course begins 6 p.m. Friday and concludes noon Sunday. It features 10 sessions by seven lecturers.
Almost 190 people have registered as of Monday, or about 80 more than have attended the mini-courses focused on Muslims in a different global context each spring since 2011, said Veronica Dristas, assistant director of outreach at Pitt's Global Studies Center.
The course follows events across the region intended to promote tolerance and build relationships among Muslims and non-Muslims, from open houses at mosques to interfaith potlucks. Such efforts have proliferated nationwide since the Nov. 13 Paris attacks and the Dec. 2 mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif.
“Frankly, I think tolerance is too low a bar,” said McNulty, who has attended Pitt-CMU mini-courses about Muslims in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. “We have to be aiming for respect of each other's belief systems.”
