New Report Tracks Discrimination Against California’s Muslims

By Carla Murphy Aug 28, 2014

California’s Muslims reported 933 discrimination complaints during 2013, according to a new annual report from the state offices of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Chief among them were employment discrimination (15 percent) with immigration and FBI and law enforcement complaints coming in at a close second.

Though they comprise the vast majority, not all complaints to CAIR came from Muslims. They also include complaints from individuals thought to "look Muslim," too. 

"While most people who know of CAIR know us through our grassroots work within the American Muslim community and therefore tend to be Muslim, we would never turn away someone who was discriminated against because they were perceived to be Muslim," says Brice Hamack, CAIR’s civil rights coordinator in the San Francisco office.

Read the full report here, which shows a slight increase in reporting from 854 complaints received in 2012.