Following a peak in hate crimes against Arab Americans and Muslims immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks, reports of such crimes have gradually decreased. A new study published by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee(ADC) and funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York, reports that, despite a recent drop, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim crimes are far more common now than in the 1980s and 1990s. Read the report.
The ADC reported that each year between 2003 and 2007, the civil rights group received an average of 120 to 130 reports of ethnically- or religiously-motivated attacks or threats.
While that figure is a dramatic decrease from the 700 incidents the group documented in the weeks following the 2001 attacks, it is a sharp increase from the 80 to 90 reports it recorded annually in the late 1990s.
Incidents of hate crime documented in the report range from verbal harassment and destruction of personal property by neighbors to credible death threats from co-workers.
According to the ADC, there are approximately 3 million Americans with Arab heritage and approximately 7 million Muslim Americans.
Carnegie Corporation of New York supports nonprofit groups that work to increase the integration of immigrants into the country’s economic, social and civic fabric through opportunities for citizenship and civic engagement; and by increasing tolerance through education about new and growing immigrant cultures, especially Muslim cultures.
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