The Use and Abuse of the Islamophobia Framework in US Higher Education
April 3-4, 2026 | University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
For over two decades, scholars have studied the racialization of Islam, arguing that Islamophobia is better understood as anti-Muslim racism. They have pointed out that this form of discrimination is not contained to questions of religious freedom, but also impacts Muslims’ experiences with surveillance, policing, immigration, employment, and media narratives. The idea of racialization was an important intervention and framing that helped shift the conversation from a focus on individual and interpersonal bias to systemic targeting that marks Muslims, and those mistaken for Muslim, as threats to US national security.
More recently, scholars are complicating our understanding of the history and evolution of Islamophobia/anti-Muslim bias, especially in the US, arguing that it emerged from anti-Palestinian agendas. Since the genocide in Gaza began, reported cases of Islamophobia/anti-Muslim racism on campuses have risen dramatically. Universities across the country have hyper-focused on Islamophobia, offering staff trainings, hosting campus symposia, hiring staff to serve Muslim students, and creating task forces on Islamophobia for informed direction to address the bias. Simultaneously, universities have also rapidly changed their policies to suffocate campus protests, raise disciplinary (and sometimes criminal) cases against protestors, and squash campus activism, particularly targeting Palestinian liberation.
This conference aims to conceptually and empirically interrogate the relationship between Islamophobia & anti-Palestinian agendas and understand how developments on campuses impact both issues and their intersection. Are campuses using Islamophobia towards the erasure of Palestine? Is there a crack in the theoretical framework of Islamophobia that may have facilitated such erasure? What has the genocide illuminated about the uses and limitations of Islamophobia/anti-Muslim racism as terms and frameworks? What can we learn from the experiences of repression on campuses after October 7 that may inform new directions the field of Islamophobia Studies? Can campus efforts to counter Islamophobia succeed without first identifying the myriad of ways Islamophobia manifests, including as anti-Palestinian, and fully understanding how it can be used and abused against its own objectives?
About The Islamophobia Working Group (IWG): Founded in 2015 in response to a nationwide surge in Islamophobia, The Islamophobia WorkingGroup (IWG) at the University of Michigan aims to provide a space where administration,faculty, staff, students, and alumni come together to address Islamophobia, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian racism in all their forms, whether interpersonal or structural. Ourmission is to foster collaboration within the University of Michigan community to confront thesechallenges and actively contribute to creating a climate that upholds the values of justice andequity, aligning with the university’s commitment to its public mission.
