Share it

By Adam Rhodes

A dirty look, a glare, people muttering under their breath. Imagine all of this happening simply because you’re Muslim or you’re wearing a hijab.

According to the Pew Research Center, there are 1.6 billion Muslim citizens around the world, which makes up 23 percent of the world’s population. Additionally, 13.7 percent of all religious-based hate crimes in 2013 were motivated by anti-Muslim bias, according to the FBI’s hate crime statistics.

That bias has hit close to home for some UCF students.

For Amirah Mathin, a sophomore biomedical sciences major, the discrimination hit while she was helping a man involved in a vehicle collision during her time as an EMT. As she was extracting the man from the vehicle, he asked not to be touched by her and threw in a racial slur or two about her hijab, or head scarf. [Read more…]