Racial Profiling and Muslim Students in the U.S.

Racial profiling had typically been understood in the United States as centered upon law enforcement apprehension of African-Americans in general and African-Americans in particular. Kenneth Meeks (2000), in an analysis of racial profiling that targeted African-Americans, argued that at the heart of racial profiling were the vestiges of institutional racism and deeply entrenched social perceptions of African-American males as more likely than others to be criminal or to possess some criminal intent.

Meeks (2000) maintains that racial profiling of African-Americans first emerged in the wake of numerous reports of the practice on all scales and all kinds of situations ranging from the arrest of a 10 year-old Black boy riding his bicycle by police officers who assumed that the bike was stolen to the inability of actor Danny Glover to get a taxi in New York City.

More recently, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States, racial profiling of individuals who either are or appear to be of Muslim or Middle Eastern heritage has become a social problem. Wertheimer (2001) has noted that by the end of September 2001, the terrorist attacks had incr

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acial profiling. However, as Winter (2001) has noted, the FBI has made it equally clear that they intend to pursue any and all tips that may require them to question thousands of Muslims and Arab-Americans. This has created a very palpable apprehension among Muslim students and Arab-Americans, many of whom believe that they are being unfairly targeted for questioning because of an emergent anti-Muslim sentiment among law enforcement officials. The problem could become one of enormous social and political significance in the United States. D.J. Schemo (2001) identified an effort to impose a federal moratorium on student visas in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-California) proposed a six-month moratorium on the issuance of these visas as part of a general effort to tighten the nationÆs security. University officials have persuaded Feinstein that such a move would be antithetical to the goals of a democratic and free society. There are currently some 16,000 students in the United States that come from states are known to have sponsored or supported terrorism. From the perspectives of the universities, international students represent a vital source of revenue. Similarly, many academics as we
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Approximate Word count = 1434
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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