Employment discrimination complaints by Arabs and Muslims surged after September 11

Evidence

Immediately following September 11, employment complaints filed by Arabs and Muslims rocketed upward. In the first eight months after the attacks, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that monitors employment discrimination, received 488 complaints from Arabs and Muslims, including 301 cases claiming unfair firings. Within a year the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee had cataloged over 800 grievances, a 400 percent increase over the past year. According to a report aired on December 15, 2006, on NPR, one-fifth of the complaints reviewed by the EEOC since 2001 have been from Muslims and Arabs, a number that is wildly out of proportion to their numbers in the United States. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 707