Muslims

U of T prof explores experiences of Canadian-born youth of Somali descent

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 17:09:40 +0000

U of T prof explores experiences of Canadian-born youth of Somali descent

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 03/05/2024 - 12:09

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As part of a two-year research project, Ahmed Ilmi interviewed a group of Canadian-born youth of Somali descent living in Toronto’s Rexdale neighbourhood (photo by Don Campbell)

Jasmine Mahoro

Topic

Our Community

Africa

Black

Cities

Muslims

U of T Scarborough

Subheadline

"I started looking at questions of being Black, Muslim and African – and being a member of this diaspora within a broader Canadian identity"

Ahmed Ilmi has witnessed firsthand the lack of inclusion and support for Black Muslim youth in the classroom – a topic he’s now exploring as a scholar at the University of Toronto.

An assistant professor, teaching stream, in the department of global development studies at U of T Scarborough, Ilmi’s work looks at the ways early educational experiences can be linked to social exclusion and identity formation among Black Canadian youth in Greater Toronto.

For two years he conducted interviews with Canadian-born youth of Somali descent living in the Toronto neighbourhood of Rexdale, which is home to a large and vibrant Somali diaspora community. Ilmi says the interviews he conducted highlight the anti-Black racism and Islamophobia experienced in the community – and reveals how this group has built their own unique identity that differs from previous generations.

He adds that the neighbourhood’s youth have coined the unique term Say-Walahi, a fusion of English and Somali that loosely translates to “swear to God” – a term that hints at multiple identities as Canadian and Muslim of Somali descent.

Writer Jasmine Mahoro spoke to Ilmi about the project and what educators can do to better support Black youth.

What inspired you to take on this project?

My goal is to study how colonial education manifests itself within the classroom, in community settings and across society. I look at marginalized Black students and the influences on Black boys, especially, in the classroom. For my current work, there is a known concentration of Black Muslim youth of Somali descent in Rexdale and the community has had low education outcomes due to systemic challenges with white, Eurocentric education.

I was also thinking about who I am – in terms of belonging, exile, diaspora and identity. I came across this unique cultural location that is very fluid and dynamic, referred to as Say-Walahi. I started looking at questions of being Black, Muslim and African – and being a member of this diaspora within a broader Canadian identity.

What did you learn about the experiences of this community?

These youth are not sitting idly and waiting for their lives to pass them by. They are incredibly brilliant. They are resisting both racism and Islamophobia by building community and proudly expressing their identity. For example, it’s common to see them use Say-Walahi memes on social media, so they are proudly owning this.

My generation and previous generations didn’t share a similar experience. It's something very profound. This is where I argue this youth group is very creative. Not only did they navigate the multiple identities that they have in the world, but they were able to connect the dots to create a new way of speaking, articulating and being that is uniquely theirs.

What were your early experiences with education like in Canada?

We don’t push Black students to achieve their full potential through education. For me, I was lucky enough to have some educators and professors that would eventually inspire me. Early on, so many told me “No” – that it wasn’t going to happen. All it took was that one “Yes” for me to move forward and keep going. Unfortunately, being the only Somali-Canadian in the classroom is something that I had to live with for most of my academic career.

How can educators and the school system better understand and address the complex challenges faced by Black Muslim youth?

Although the youth I interviewed were all born here in Ontario, their identities are seen as foreign. It's not even a question of where you were born or where are you from, it's that their identities are not seen as Canadian.

At the moment, the school system we have is molded around a particular kind of identity that is white and European. When you don't fit into that mold, it's as if your identity is an afterthought. That doesn't give you much inspiration to become productive members of society. There are also low expectations of Black students. If the beginning of the conversation comes from a place of Black brilliance, then we can think about creating and constructing classroom spaces that foster Black excellence.

What impact do you hope your current research will have?

I hope this will inspire people to think about their own identity. I want educators to think about how they can reach and inspire these youth and believe in their potential.

There are also policy implications, such as creating more inclusive classrooms built around a multiplicity of identities. It also goes beyond how we fit in the overall Black Muslim African experience that is expressed only during specific times such as Black History Month. It includes looking at ways to validate and uplift these voices consistently and how we can work with that knowledge to transform society.

'I guess I was always an activist,' U of T's David Rayside looks back on a career supporting sexual diversity

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 14:15:25 +0000

'I guess I was always an activist,' U of T's David Rayside looks back on a career supporting sexual diversity

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 06/17/2020 - 10:15

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Professor Emeritus David Rayside helped form an early 1990s committee on homophobia, helped conceive of the Positive Space initiative and became the founding director of the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies (U of T file photo)

Chris Sasaki

Topic

Our Community

Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity

Faculty of Arts & Science

LGBTQ

Muslims

University College

At 11 p.m. on February 5, 1981, 200 police officers descended on four bathhouses in downtown Toronto in a series of co-ordinated raids. By the end of the operation, more than 300 charges were laid for being found in a common bawdy house or operating a bawdy house. At the time, it was the largest single arrest in the city’s history.

The raid immediately mobilized Toronto’s gay community, sparking protests against mistreatment at the hands of the police. Among those galvanized by the raids was David Rayside, who now, nearly 40 years later, is a professor emeritus in the University of Toronto’s department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and the founding director of the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at University College.

“I guess I was always an activist,” Rayside says. “I was active in feminist circles soon after my appointment to the faculty in 1974. Gay activism came a few years later when I started where lots of people started – stuffing and licking envelopes for the monthly gay magazine, The Body Politic.

“The police raids got me and many people mobilized. I wasn’t so good with a bullhorn, but I was good at organization, so I became active in the Right to Privacy Committee, the Citizens’ Independent Review of Police Activities and, a few years later, in the coalition pressing for the addition of sexual orientation to the Ontario Human Rights Code.”

Rayside’s activism continued at U of T. He helped form an early 1990s committee on homophobia. In the mid-90s, he and Rona Abramovitch, the then status of women officer at U of T, alongside a group of students, faculty and staff conceived of the Positive Space initiative.

In 2004, Rayside became the founding director of the Bonham Centre. Arts & Science writer Chris Sasaki recently spoke to him about the centre and his current research focus: the Muslim response to sexual diversity in Canada and the U.S. – work he is conducting with Momin Rahman from the department of sociology at Trent University.

David Rayside (centre) is pictured in a 2016 photo during an event to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Positive Space campaign (photo by Johnny Guatto)

How did the Bonham Centre come to be?

Back in the mid-90s, a group of faculty members and graduate students started meeting to discuss curriculum change that recognized sexual diversity. We wanted departments and faculties to take sexuality seriously – just as feminist activists had wanted gender studies to be taken seriously. In 1998, we created a minor program that took advantage of a few existing courses as well as a course I had introduced over a decade earlier on the politics of gender and sexuality. Then, in 2005, we expanded to a major program and created the centre, three years later adding specialists at the undergraduate level and a collaborate graduate program.

Right from the beginning, we had significant undergraduate enrolment and, from 2008 on, the graduate program drew students from across the campus. We weren’t the first program in sexual diversity but we soon became the biggest with the highest profile. There were keen instructors – dynamic program directors who had a lot of enthusiasm and energy like Maureen FitzGerald, David Townsend and Scott Rayter. My successor as director, Brenda Cossman, as well as the current director, Dana Seitler, have built on that foundation, expanding our reputation nationally and internationally.

Your most recent work relates to the queer Muslim experience in Canada. What have you found?

For queer Muslims, there’s been a long history of challenge in asserting their distinctive place within their own ethno-religious community and in the broader LGBTQ world. Those who want to retain their faith face a struggle familiar to those in other religious communities, where queerness is too easily seen as a threat.

And it’s complicated for Muslims, as it is with other ethno-racial minorities. Within the broader queer community, they can and do experience racial prejudice, compounded by the view that their faith makes them unrecognizable outsiders. Being queer and Muslim, in that sense, is thought impossible without abandoning that crucial faith part of their identity. The exclusion they experience from Muslim communities is not categorically different from that felt by many others, but it’s perhaps slower to change because of the dominance of traditionalist family attitudes in the countries they have migrated from and among North American Muslim clerics.

Your current research will appear in a book being edited by your collaborator Mohmin Rahmin. For that, you interviewed queer and political activists in the Muslim community to gain insight into the response to sexual diversity from mainstream Muslim political or religious groups. Have you found that attitudes are changing?

There has been some change and there are encouraging signs. Muslim political groups have a lot on their plates, dealing with Islamophobia, anti-Muslim incidents and sentiment. Some organizations are struggling with how to be more supportive, recognizing the importance of building alliances with groups representing other forms of prejudice.

The preparedness of queer Muslims to claim their own voices helps to force change. There are queer Muslim groups that are explicitly feminist and LGBTQ inclusive. In Canada, Salaam supports Muslims who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and/or intersex. They have a mosque and regularly livestream LGBTQ-inclusive services.

And I think we will be seeing the large-scale shift in Muslim attitudes in Canada that we have started to see in the United States. Children are growing up with all kinds of other kids in their classes and schools have been moving – often slowly – to a recognition of sexual diversity. On balance, Muslim Canadians are well educated and have relatively progressive views, and I can see indications that their attitudes on sexual diversity will align more closely with their views on other social and political issues.

Has your activism given you any particular insight into the current protests against police mistreatment of Black Americans?

The raids in 1981 opened my eyes to how powerful the culture within the police force was. And the same applies today. I’ve known a number of police officers over the years who have really confronted their own prejudice and the discriminatory patterns they see within their own forces. But there is still a very conservative organizational culture that we and they have to contend with – one with a very us-versus-them approach to various already marginalized communities. I see some indications of change in some North American cities, but I fully appreciate that Black and Indigenous communities have reason to be skeptical and demand more – and quickly.

U of T's Institute of Islamic Studies captures stories and data to change the conversation on Muslims in Canada

noreen.rasbach — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 19:54:03 +0000

U of T's Institute of Islamic Studies captures stories and data to change the conversation on Muslims in Canada

noreen.rasbach Wed, 09/25/2019 - 15:54

Cutline

Canadians hold a vigil at Toronto City Hall in March for victims of the Christchurch, New Zealand mosque shootings, which left 51 dead (photo by Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Jovana Jankovic

Topic

Our Community

Institute of Islamic Studies

Diversity

Faculty of Arts & Science

Research & Innovation

Alongside its mission to foster research projects in the study of Islam and Muslims, the University of Toronto’s Institute of Islamic Studies also wants to help change the public conversation about Muslims in Canada.

The institute is spearheading a number of digital humanities projects to collect Muslim stories, combat Islamophobic ideas and partner with various organizations to better understand and represent the demographics and lived experiences of Muslims across Canada.

One such project is the recently launched Study of Islam and Muslims in Canada, in which the Institute of Islamic Studies is building partnerships with other academic institutions, community organizations and nonprofits like the Inspirit Foundation, whose mandate is to combat discrimination based on ethnicity, race and religion.

Anver Emon, director of U of T's Institute of Islamic Studies

“We are constantly engaging each other to understand what's happening on the ground and at the grassroots level with Muslims in Canada,” says the institute's director Professor Anver Emon, a scholar of Islamic legal history appointed to the Faculty of Law and the department of history in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

Within the Study of Islam and Muslims in Canada, two particular projects are in the works: a large-scale data architecture project and an archival collection project.

Statistics Canada conducts a nationwide census every five years but only asks a question about religious identity on every second census – every 10 years. It’s something Emon wants changed because “a lack of data hinders responsible democratic decision-making,” he says.

Since Muslims often identify in both religious and ethnic terms, which do not overlap, Emon says the once-per-decade census question is inadequate for analyzing Islamophobia alongside other, more race-based discrimination.

“White supremacist rhetoric, which is increasingly part of hate online, targets people not just by race, but by religious identity,” says Emon. “Our statistical landscape and the architecture of our data need to fundamentally shift to understand hate directed at people on racial or religious grounds.”

Accordingly, the Institute of Islamic Studies aims to build more efficient pathways – through sorting, tagging, search functions, keywords and more – that will enable citizens, scholars and policy-makers to acquire accurate and nuanced portraits of Muslim issues and communities.

Sarah Shah will lead the data architecture project within the Study of Islam and Muslims in Canada

The data architecture project will be led by post-doctoral researcher Sarah Shah, who recently completed her PhD at U of T’s department of sociology and works as a community organizer in the Muslim LGBTQ community.

“If, say, there’s a hate crime directed at a mosque in one particular town,” says Emon, “we need to know things like: How many Muslims are in that area? What's the socioeconomic class? What is the gender distribution? What are the property allocations? What's the educational level? We need this to understand why a particular community was targeted. Moreover, we need to relate these particular data points to each other, which is impossible when you don’t have data on Muslims that you can disaggregate.”

While Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is a valuable resource for exploring the history of many of Canada’s communities, Emon says the race-versus-religion problem comes up.

“The LAC subject search function doesn’t have a religion category. There are only ethnic categories. So again, the process is indirect: You have to go through those ethnic categories to grossly estimate the picture of Muslims in Canada.”

Moska Rokay will create a digital archive of Muslims in Canada

Enter Moska Rokay, the Institute of Islamic Studies' recently appointed digital humanities research fellow. Rokay is a graduate of the archives and records management program at U of T’s Faculty of Information. She will create a proof-of-concept digital archive of Muslims in Canada and will analyze the ways in which such an archive can support identity-formation processes.

The archive’s acquisition strategy is still underway, but Emon hopes contributions to the archive will come largely from the Muslim community itself.

“We want to draw upon basements that may have had documents filed away for decades – documents just languishing around the country – and we want to construct an acquisition policy that can inform new storytelling initiatives about Muslims in Canada,” says Emon.

As digital technologies and online content continue to play ever-increasing roles in our lives, there is growing concern about ethical questions.

The social and political implications of AI and other emerging technologies are only starting to be scrutinized, and the Institute of Islamic Studies – with its goal of combatting Islamophobia and white supremacy, particularly online – has a vested interest.

Some scholarly work has begun to investigate the inherent inequality embedded in algorithms, including those that govern social media feeds and search engines.

“We're in early stages, but we’d like to work with colleagues across disciplines to have a conversation about our core interest in the algorithms that amplify online hate and inequality, such as Islamophobia,” says Emon.

“It’s important to recognize that the current search engines and search vehicles, whether developed by government agencies like LAC or by private corporations like Google, are just not structured in a way that helps us find useful information about Muslims in Canada.”

The presentation of information – whether online, in archives or in conversations – is key to shaping the public discourse that surrounds a given community. The institute is combing through data, documents and stories to build a more holistic portrait of Muslims across Canada.

“If people want to get involved in the archive, they should ask their families,” says Emon. “Talk to their grandparents, talk to people who are coming in to the country – people who might have old records.”

U of T sociologist researches the effects of racialized border practices on Canadian Muslims

ullahnor — Mon, 01 May 2017 20:49:29 +0000

U of T sociologist researches the effects of racialized border practices on Canadian Muslims

ullahnor Mon, 05/01/2017 - 16:49

Cutline

U of T Mississauga's Paula Maurutto is following up on previous research on travel and Muslim identity (photo by Paula Maurutto)

Blake Eligh

Author legacy

Blake Eligh

Topic

Canada Border Services

Sociology

Diversity

Racialized

A U of T sociologist is investigating the effects of racialized border practices on identity and citizenship of Canadian Muslims.

U of T Mississauga Professor Paula Maurutto and co-researcher Baljit Nagra of the University of Ottawa are following up on their previous research on travel and Muslim identity.

Back in 2016, Maurutto and Nagra published a study in the Canadian Journal of Sociology in which they interviewed 50 young Canadians who are Muslim between the ages of 18 and 31 living in Vancouver and Toronto. At the time, interviewees reported that they felt fearful they would be stripped of their rights and said they felt a lack of ability to freely assert their religious identities when travelling.

“Our interviewees referred to being repeatedly stopped, questioned, detained and harassed by security personnel,” Maurutto says. “They felt that any evidence of their Muslim identity – name, country of birth, appearance or clothing – made them a target for extra surveillance.”

Researchers found that respondents made a point of moderating their religious or cultural identities when travelling. In some cases, this meant trimming beards for men, and forgoing a hijab or choosing a colourful scarf instead of a black one for women, as well as adopting a more “North American” style of dress. Respondents said the negative border experiences often served to reinforce their religious and cultural identities. About 30 per cent of interviewees said their Muslim identity had been a focal point of their identity before 9/11, but 68 per cent reported identifying more strongly as Muslim and feeling a deeper connection to their faith after 9/11, due to feelings about needing to protect their faith.

“They reported taking on more of an identity to counteract perceptions and human rights complaints. Women who had not worn headscarves became politicized and began wearing them as a political statement,” Maurutto says.

The researchers are taking another look at the effects of racialized border practices. Currently, they are looking at the effect of C-51 on Muslim travellers. Passed in 2007, the legislation expanded the Canadian Passenger Protect Program so the government could add anyone to the no-fly list who they suspected might engage in terrorism.

“At the time, it was estimated that there were between 500 and 2,000 names on that list,” Maurutto says. “We don’t have current data on who has been added to or removed from the list since then.

“It’s very difficult to get information about the list – people only find out that they’re on it when they are denied a boarding pass, and there’s very little recourse to get one’s name removed from the list. It has real implications – it affects whether people can leave the country for business, to visit family, accompany their children or go abroad for university.

“The government has created legislation and practices with a serious impact that hasn’t been thought out carefully. Their freedoms are being restricted because they are part of a group. But these are human rights and civil rights violations of people who have legitimate Canadian status. We have to understand how human rights are being violated, and why certain groups are targeted.”

Round two: U of T expert discusses constitutional questions arising over Trump's newly revised travel ban

ullahnor — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 21:22:19 +0000

Round two: U of T expert discusses constitutional questions arising over Trump's newly revised travel ban

ullahnor Mon, 03/06/2017 - 16:22

Cutline

Demonstrators in January protested U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban on seven Muslim countries. The suspicion that it looks like a thinly disguised Muslim travel ban remains, says U of T's David Schneiderman (photo by Zach Gibson via Getty Images)

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Author legacy

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Topic

U.S. President Donald Trump took a second attempt at his controversial travel ban Monday.

For 90 days, the new order says, visas will not be issued to people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Iraq has been taken off the visa blacklist.

This time, the order appears to be trying to avoid some of the chaos of the earlier ban – the new order will not affect green card holders or anyone who already has a visa, nor is it expected to result in widespread airport detentions, which sparked protests and several lawsuits last time. But questions still remain over its legality.

U of T Law Professor David Schneiderman told U of T News that while Trump may have an easier time in court with this version, federal courts may still be interested in the constitutional questions over the new order.

Is the revised ban unconstitutional?

It is hard to predict what a court will say about this new revised Executive Order. The suspicion that it looks like a thinly disguised Muslim travel ban remains. While nationals from Iraq have been removed from the list of designated countries, all of the other states have predominantly Muslim populations. Moreover, as last week’s leaked Homeland Security document reveals, banning travellers from these countries is an unreliable indicator of potential terrorist activity.

Just as federal courts in various states were interested in the possibility of violations of the First Amendment Establishment Clause by reason of religious discrimination in the first version of the travel ban – because of earlier statements made by then-candidate Trump and those of his top advisors – they might again be interested. But the revised Executive Order is designed to be more litigation-proof than the first, so the president may have an easier time in court than the last time around.

How is it different in terms of being able to prevent a federal judge from blocking it?

One significant revision is the exemption from the second travel ban of green card holders and those holding U.S. visas, whether outside or inside the U.S. This weakens the denial of ‘due process’ argument. Also the ban on Syrian refugees is not permanent but limited to 120 days.

If the first version of the travel ban was overbroad, this second version is (only) a little more carefully tailored. By omitting those who have an existing connection to the U.S., there will be more difficulty obtaining ‘standing’ to challenge the Executive Order before federal courts. The state of Washington, which successfully claimed standing because of its proprietary interest in public universities within the state, may not as easily obtain standing this second time around.

Indeed, standing to challenge the constitutionality of the ban (which requires showing a particularized and concrete injury) may prove more of a problem. Perhaps only litigants within the U.S. with a connection to banned overseas nationals – for instance, a U.S.-based citizen, green card or visa holder seeking to bring relatives to the U.S. – would be better situated to launch a challenge.

What are the legal issues this time?

Probably the issue of religious discrimination will be most prominent.

In the first Executive Order, ‘persecuted religious minorities’ (mainly Christians) from within the banned countries were accorded an exemption from the ban. Having omitted any reference to religious minorities in the second Executive Order, this renders it a little less vulnerable to constitutional challenge.

U.S. constitutional law (unlike most every other mature constitutional system) is not interested in indirect or ‘adverse impact’ discrimination. Only intentional discrimination is constitutionally cognizable. Courts may only find discrimination if it is on the face of, or just below, the record.

As last time, the argument will be that statements made by candidate Trump and his advisors reveal that an anti-Muslim animus is behind the Executive Order. Weighing against any judicial intervention is the alleged national security interest served by the ban, coupled with the statutory authority the president possesses to issue this order under the Immigration and Nationality Act. When acting under the authority of Congress, presidential power ‘is at its maximum’ and so less susceptible to constitutional attack.

University of Toronto faculty, experts and students respond to Trump's travel ban

ullahnor — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 16:05:04 +0000

University of Toronto faculty, experts and students respond to Trump's travel ban

ullahnor Wed, 02/01/2017 - 11:05

Cutline

Volunteer lawyers join protesters at the Los Angeles International Airport to demonstrate against U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order banning citizens from seven Muslim majority countries (photo by Konrad Fiedler/AFP/Getty Images)

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Author legacy

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

With the world reeling and global markets reacting to U.S. President Donald Trump's new travel ban, University of Toronto faculty and students are tapping into their expertise to find fitting responses.

“At the Faculty of Law, we have a special responsibility to champion the rule of law, ” said Dean Edward Iacobucci. “This week’s seemingly cavalier dismissals of international norms and shared legal understandings by the U.S. President are especially troubling for our community.”

In a statement released Jan. 31, Iacobucci said the Faculty of Law is working on a number of initiatives in response to the ban.

“We have posted on social media and online our willingness to consider late applications from prospective students who may be affected, directly or indirectly, by the travel ban to the U.S.,” he said. “We have also reached out to some Canadian JD students in the U.S. who may wish to transfer to U of T in light of recent events.”

On Feb. 3, the Office of the Provost posted a memo highlighting information and resources for students, faculty and staff across the university – including examples of ways members of the U of T community could help, such as consideration of late applications for admissions and hosting events at U of T previously scheduled for the U.S.

Read the complete memo

Read the Globe and Mail story about U of T efforts

Iacobucci said the Faculty of Law had learned of a planned conference at Columbia University in March that was to involve Yemeni scholars now banned from travel to the U.S.

“Out of basic collegiality, and also to offer a concrete manifestation of our rejection of careless, heavy-handed, and intolerant approaches to national security, we have offered to host the workshop at the Faculty and are working with our colleagues at Columbia to see whether this is feasible.”

Read the complete statement

The department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science also issued a statement “categorically” condemning Trump's executive order and calling for action by such groups as the Canadian Political Science Association, the International Studies Association and the American Political Science Association.

“We would hope that political science associations with conferences or meetings scheduled in the United States will consider moving locations, or at the very least, creating participatory opportunities for those who cannot, or do not want to, travel to the United States while this executive order is in effect at the very least, creating participatory opportunities for those who cannot, or do not want to, travel to the United States while this executive order is in effect,” the statement said.

Read the complete statement

Individual faculty members and researchers from across the university are also taking a stand. U of T Engineering Professor Peter Robert Herman found himself staging a brief but very personal protest at an academic conference in San Francisco.

Herman's PhD student, Ehsan Alimohammadian, was detained for 14 hours in San Francisco International Airport on the weekend and denied entry to present his research at the conference.

With his student sent back to Canada, Herman presented the research instead, taking a few minutes to express his opposition to the policy.

Read the Globe and Mail story about Ehsan

Professor Peter Robert Herman protesting President's Trump's travel ban which led to his PhD student being denied entry to the U.S. to present his research to a conference for SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics (photo courtesy of Peter Robert Herman)

Associate Professor Emily Gilbert, of the departments of geography and planning and Canadian studies in the Faculty of Arts & Science, is an expert in borders, Canada-U.S. relations, immigration and mobility. Gilbert had weighed in on Trump's first week in office – but that was before he signed the executive order for the travel ban.

In an interview with U of T News on Jan. 31, Gilbert said the travel ban is “racial profiling” and she called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take decisive action rather than just “tweeting on the importance of diversity and Canada’s welcome to refugees.”

“We in Canada should be concerned on all kinds of levels,“ Gilbert said. “Not only because many residents and citizens will be subject to these new authoritarian and discriminatory laws, although this is, of course, very important. But because we have become so deeply implicated in border security with the United States, with extensive information-sharing on immigration and visa applicants, refugee-vetting, and entry-exit data at the land border.”

Over the weekend, President Meric Gertler spoke out against the executive order.

“The strength of research and teaching at the University of Toronto has always been based upon our ability to welcome the most talented individuals from around the world, and the freedom of our faculty and students to travel abroad for purposes of scholarship and study," Gertler said. “Actions that impede this would be terribly harmful to our academic community, and to Canadian research and scholarship more broadly.

“The idea of targeting and restricting the travel of individuals on the basis of their nationality or birthplace is antithetical to everything we stand for as an institution and a country.”

Read how U of T is keeping close watch on U.S. travel restrictions

Emerging scholars at the university are also offering analysis, with op-eds calling on Canada to do more.

Simon Frankel Pratt and Craig Damian Smith, PhD candidates in political science wrote an op-ed in the Toronto Star, saying that by banning refugees, and specifically targeting Muslims, Trump has made the United States a security liability. Pratt researches counterterrorism, intelligence and national/international security. Smith researches the connections between irregular migration systems and regional security.

Both argued that refugees and asylum seekers often provide a crucial source of intelligence on security threats like terrorism and transnational organized crime, and now Trump’s ban among other things “harms information-sharing and undermines the campaign against Daesh in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. has just hamstrung its abilities to gain vital counter-terrorist threat intelligence, and as part of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing partnership, Canada also loses out.”

Read: banning refugees harms U.S. security

Lama Mourad, another PhD candidate in political science, also wrote an op-ed for the Toronto Star, tapping into her own personal experiences as a child of refugees and her research into how Lebanon has responded to the Syrian refugee crisis, to call on Trudeau to repeal the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S.

Read: Trudeau should repeal refugee agreement with U.S.

Gilbert is also calling for the rescinding of both the Safe Third Country Agreement and the Designated Country of Origin status.

“The United States can no longer be considered a safe country,” Gilbert said. “We need to make it easier for vulnerable peoples in the United States to seek refuge in Canada.

“The prohibition against refugees further underscores the ways that this vulnerable group is increasingly securitized, that is, characterized as a security risk. With the sweep of a pen, the most at risk are deemed to be the most risky. And this is despite the fact that no acts of terrorism on U.S. soil have been associated with refugees in more than four decades. This is not evidence-based decision making.”

In his statement, the Faculty of Law's Iacobucci said people are continuing to engage in “in ways small and large” in efforts related to the travel ban.

“Universities are grounded on the simple, incontrovertible premise that ideas matter,” Iacobucci said. “Our community, and others, will continue to provide great and good ideas to counter the small and the bad.”

Anti-Muslim prejudice: Canadians have no right to feel smug, say U of T experts

lavende4 — Tue, 01 Nov 2016 17:41:38 +0000

Anti-Muslim prejudice: Canadians have no right to feel smug, say U of T experts

lavende4 Tue, 11/01/2016 - 13:41

Cutline

A Syrian refugee family at a welcoming dinner on Toronto's waterfront (photo by Bernard Weil/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Terry Lavender

Author legacy

Terry Lavender

Topic

Global Lens

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Muslims

Immigration

Refugees

Faculty of Arts & Science

International

Global

Politics

Canadians have no reason to feel superior to Americans and Europeans about their attitudes towards immigrants and refugees, University of Toronto political scientist Phil Triadafilopoulos told a packed forum at the Munk School of Global Affairs recently.

Triadafilopoulos, an associate professor at U of T Scarborough, was participating in an all-U of T panel discussion called Banning Muslims: Explaining Xenophobia and Islam in Europe and the U.S. He believes Canadians are just as xenophobic as other peoples, and that our acceptance of immigrants and refugees is due in large part to our electoral system.

Other participants at the Munk forum included Randall Hansen, professor of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science who is also the director of the Munk School's Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies; Chris Cochrane, an associate professor of political science at U of T Scarborough; and Anna Korteweg, chair of the department of sociology at U of T Mississauga. The debate was hosted by the Munk School's Brian Stewart and organized by Aisha Ahmad, an assistant professor of political science at U of T Scarborough.

Ahmad said she organized the panel after a spate of anti-Muslim sentiment and actions in America, Europe and Canada. She cited as examples U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims coming to the U.S. and Canadian Conservative leadership candidates demanding restrictions on women wearing niqabs and wanting immigrants and refugees to be tested for “Canadian values."

“Canadians are not especially open to asylum seekers and refugees,” Triadafilopoulos said. “At best we will resettle 50,000 Syrian refugees. We could do more. We could do much more, and other states have done much more despite facing more trying circumstances.”

Every country in the North Atlantic world has experienced a backlash against Muslims and refugees, he said. Canada’s was more muted because our first-past-the-post electoral system means that politicians must pay heed to recent immigrants who have influence in vote-rich areas in and around our major cities.

European countries with proportional representation are more prone to anti-Muslim rhetoric because extremist parties can gain votes by indulging in such rhetoric, he said. In the United States, the primary system allowed Donald Trump to gain support with similar anti-Muslim sentiments.

Hansen, who noted that European attitudes towards Muslims are sometimes grounded in historical conflicts, had a different explanation for Canadian tolerance: our secure borders.

“Immigration is popular in Canada, not because of our incredible merits, our extraordinary tolerance or our exceptional Canadian virtues," he said. "It’s popular because we feel secure. We have always had control of our borders. What we’ve seen in the U.S. and Germany is that when people have a sense that they have lost control of their borders, support for immigration collapses and populism flourishes.”

But Canadians can pat themselves on the back for their success in integrating immigrants and refugees into Canadian society, Cochrane said.

“Evidence shows that Canada does an incredibly good job of integrating immigrants. For example, we have very high rates of citizenship acquisition by immigrants, high rates of labour force participation, high rates of support for political participation among immigrants, high rates of adoption of majority values and high rates of intermarriage as well.”

Hansen held out hope that anti-Muslim sentiment will subside in Europe and the United States.

“Much of this reflects the last gasp on the part of a bunch of racist, misogynist and homophobic white men who once ruled the roost and whose world has disappeared,” he said.

Hardline anti-Muslim politicians will never be able to get more than 35 or 40 per cent of the vote, if even that, Hansen predicted.

Cochrane expressed some sympathy for those who feel ambivalent towards refugees and immigrants.

“It’s perfectly natural for people to feel uncomfortable in the presence of things that they’re not used to and things that they haven’t experienced before," Cochrane said. "People who are losing their jobs have valid concerns about their prospects. They are the ones most likely to be affected or at least possibly by immigration. So it’s not entirely a mystery why there is unease about immigration.”

However, Triadafilopoulos said, anti-immigrant attitudes have implications for democracy, peace, and international security.

“Fear is not a good ground for generating social cohesion," he said. "It turns fellow citizens into scapegoats and friends into enemies.”

Cochrane noted that Muslims bear the brunt of anti-immigrant sentiment today.

“The question is why are we singling out Muslims," he said. "Is it a question of religion or a question of ethnic diversity more generally? Is there in fact something different about Muslims? I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that there is. The evidence suggests the opposite."

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Watch a closed-captioned replay of the debate here.