- For Immediate Release and Distribution -

Photo by CAIR-Chicago Communications Coordinator, Hafsa Haider, capturing the March on DNC near the United Center on opening day of the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 19, 2024.

(CHICAGO, IL, 8/27/2024) – The Chicago Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Chicago), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today joined a call for Northwestern University to apologize after photos of Arab students wearing Palestinian scarves, or keffiyehs, were removed from the medical school’s social media platforms. 

In an Instagram post over the weekend, Northwestern’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) said some of the photos taken at a school event earlier this year that showed medical students wearing keffiyehs were deleted from Flickr, an online photo-sharing platform. The group also said officials at the university’s Feinberg School of Medicine removed photos of Arab students from its official Instagram page. In an open letter to school administrators, the club demanded a public apology and an investigation into the incident. 

SEE: Northwestern med school scrapes photos of Arab students in keffiyehs

In a statement, CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab said:

"A student wearing a keffiyeh as an expression of personal identity is no different than a student wearing a yarmulke as an expression of the same. I cannot imagine the same action taken in the latter scenario. Erasing these students from public view adds to the mounting track record of negligence and erasure of Muslim and Arab students we have seen from this school over the past year: 83 complaints, per our count, from Muslim and Palestinian students remain unaddressed.

“The condescending claim that this was a measure intended for their safety only adds salt to the wound: firstly, the students are insulted by the suggestion that erasure is the only option for safety; secondly, it is infantilizing to take actions on their behalf without warning or consultation.

“Not only does Northwestern owe an apology, but it owes its students and our larger community a serious commitment to chartering a new course for its treatment of its small, beleaguered population of Muslim and Palestinian students who not only feel susceptible to external doxxing, but also internal neglect, erasure and humiliation."

SEE: CAIR-Chicago Reacts to University Encampments and Recent Antisemitism Bill

SEE: Ahmed Rehab Discusses Northwestern University Investigation

Farah Afify, CAIR Research and Advocacy Coordinator said:

“We urge Northwestern University to apologize for attempting to erase the presence of Muslim and Arab students exercising their right to free speech and opposing the genocide in Gaza. Campus environments nationwide are becoming increasingly censorious and hostile toward students speaking out against the genocide. This must stop.”

She noted that CAIR and the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) designated The George Washington University (GWU), the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Emory University as “institutions of particular concern” due to their creation of a hostile campus environment for Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, and other students, faculty, and staff opposing the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

SEE: CAIR, ADC Designate GWU, UCLA, and Emory as “Institutions of Particular Concern” Following Targeting of Anti-Genocide Student Protesters

CAIR-Chicago’s mission is to defend civil rights, fight bigotry, and promote understanding.  

CONTACT: Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of CAIR Chicago, 202-870-0166, arehab@cair.com; Maggie Slavin, Operations Manager of CAIR-Chicago, 815-590-3991, mslavin@cair.com; Hafsa Haider, Communications Coordinator of CAIR-Chicago, 561-317-7509, hhaider@cair.com