But what is Islamophobia’s relationship to the law, and how has the law endorsed or emboldened it? Furthermore, can the law be maneuvered to inhibit it, or be relied upon to redress it? This course will examine these questions, and more. Critical examination of Islamophobia enables an investigation of how the law, political institutions and rhetoric, law enforcement, the media, and more, propagate the core baselines that Islam is inherently violent and inassimilable with American values, and that Muslim identity is presumptive of terror threat; and second, analysis of the historical antecedents that gave rise to Islamophobia as a modern form of religious and racial animus.

While anchored in law, this course will also examine how actors beyond the law not only partake in the broader enterprise of structural Islamophobia, but also interact with legal actors and pronouncements that hold Islam out to be violent and Muslim identity tethered to the suspicion of terrorism. Beginning with a review of foundational texts, the course will examine how the most prominent scholars, novelists, artists, and thinkers, beginning in 17th Century Europe, produced works and projected ideas that disseminated the view that Islam was the mirror opposite of the West, and its adherents were a group to be feared and fenced out of their societies. These works enabled the political enterprise of casting Muslims as existential threats, carrying forward war against Muslim states, justifying colonial interventions, and more. After establishing the theoretical underpinnings of Orientalism, the master discourse that spawned Islamophobia as we understand it today, the course will then examine how U.S. immigration and naturalization laws, in conjunction with civil courts, partook in the project of holding Islam to be a faith that cannot be reconciled with racial and religious conceptions of citizenship, from 1790 through 1952.

Next, the course will shift its attention to the World War II through Civil Rights periods, and examine texts, case law and narratives whereby specific groups were similarly cast as “enemy races” or “subversive elements” on grounds of racial or ethnic identity, highlighting how Islamophobia takes form, and often overlaps with, other forms of animus. Finally, the course will close and dedicate ample time to the modern development and emergence of Islamophobia, most notably with the commencement and protraction of the War on Terror, which witnesses an expansion of Islamophobia (on many fronts through) formal state policy and programming, and interaction with forms perpetuated by private actors.

The course will center much of its attention on Islamophobia’s intersection with legal doctrine, and most closely, the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendments, and statutes defining employment immigration and naturalization, employment discrimination, and more. In addition to old and prevailing immigration law concerns, counterterror policies and programming, and employment discrimination statutes Title VII and §1981 of the U.S.C. In certain areas of inquiry, the course will also examine international cases germane to Islamophobia, offering comparative understandings of the phenomenon.

Additional Information:
Credit Hours: 2
Grading Option: Letter Grade Only
Graduation Writing Requirement: No
Flexible/Upper-Level Writing Requirement: Yes
Skills Requirement: No
Simulation Course: No
Experiential Learning: No
Seminar: No
Special Withdrawal Course: No
Limited Enrollment Number: 12
Final Exam Given: No
Paper Or In-Class Presentation: Yes, paper and in-class presentation
Participation Points: Yes
Attendance Policy: Per Statement Of Student Policies
Teaching Method: In Person

* The law school has a policy that is used to calculate credit hours. Please see the Statement of Student Policies.