At the start of a new quarter, most students’ focus is on their coursework. However, this isn’t the case for a group of BIPOC and Muslim students attending the University of Washington (UW), who say they are more concerned about their physical safety on campus.
One of these students is UW sophomore Isha Hussein, who on Feb. 25, 2024, published a four-page statement describing her negative on-campus dorming experience. The letter, posted to her personal Instagram account, details how Hussein, who is Black and Muslim, was threatened and assaulted by her roommates. Hussein says she publicized her statement to garner attention and support after not receiving any from staff members within UW’s Housing and Food Services (HFS), who Hussein argues could’ve helped her leave a dangerous situation.
According to Hussein, on Oct. 7, 2023, when reports first broke out about the Hamas attack on Israel, Roommate A — as Hussein refers to her — approached her to talk about the news. Roommate A questioned Hussein on who she supported, expressed her own need to join the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and proclaimed Israel had a right to defend itself.
Hussein says on Oct. 9, Roommate A pulled a knife on her and said she would do so again while Hussein was praying. On Oct. 11, Hussein filed her first report with HFS.
“It was scary knowing that I had a roommate that didn’t like me because of my skin color and because of my religion. It was also sad because all the people in a position of power weren’t listening to me,” Hussein told Real Change.
“When she pulled the knife out on me, my first instinct wasn’t to record her and take a picture of her with the knife,” she said. “The people in positions of power didn’t believe me, but you know they don’t believe people until it’s too late, so I didn’t want it to be too late for me.”
In November 2023, Hussein was assaulted twice by her other roommate, Roommate B, and threatened by Roommate A before both moved out. Afterward, Hussein attempted to file an additional report but was unsuccessful, as HFS notified her it would be unable to continue the investigation due to those two roommates moving out the day after the second assault took place.
In early February, Hussein recalled learning of a Facebook page that posted information about her, including the dorm building where she was residing.
UW spokesperson Victor Balta stated in an email to Real Change that Hussein and Roommate A were offered a chance to move into different rooms 48 hours after Hussein made the first report but that Hussein declined. Hussein instead stayed with a trusted friend until HFS requested she move back into her dorm.
In the email, Balta also wrote that HFS requested Hussein submit a statement about the multiple incidents and provide a link to the Facebook page in order to collect the allegations for an investigation to continue.
“The claims and counterclaims are serious, deeply personal and have been difficult to resolve for all parties,” Balta wrote. “UW HFS was, however, in regular contact with both students and they have been offered extensive support and resources to help them both move forward and to formally report any ongoing or subsequent issues.”
Hussein said HFS never notified her that she needed to supply additional information or links.
What was most troubling to Hussein was that as she continued to report her roommates’ actions, neither her residential advisor nor any other HFS staff member took her seriously. At first, Hussein didn’t plan to publish the letter on social media. Hussein originally sent it to UW President Ana Mari Cauce, who forwarded it to Denzil Suite, the university’s vice president for student life. Suite informed Hussein that the university was conducting a survey about Islamophobia and that Hussein could contribute to the survey by sharing her own experience.
“My original statement was eight pages, but I cut down a significant amount of pages because I was unsure if people were willing to read [even] four pages,” Hussein said. “I went to Instagram because I wanted to be heard, and I knew that people would hear me.”
One of the individuals who read Hussein’s statement was Sára Mustre-del Río, a UW alumni who lived on-campus for two years. Mustre-del Río explained she’d been racially profiled and ignored by HFS when she made reports of feeling unsafe due to experiencing racism while dorming at UW. During a dorm party, Mustre-del Río and her friend had been singled out for questioning by a resident advisor (RA) who shut down the party. The RA assumed Mustre-del Río was intoxicated due to her speech being slow and reported her to HFS. However, English isn’t Mustre-del Río’s first language and she said at the time of the incident, she was still struggling to grasp the language. As an international student, Mustre-del Río was under the impression that UW prioritized its students of color but soon realized that wasn’t completely true. In her third year at UW, Mustre-del Río moved off campus because she felt unheard.
“I’m really scared for Muslim students right now, [especially] Black and Arab Muslim students,” Mustre-del Río said. Isha’s story is just the embodiment of how UW responds to Islamophobia, how little they care about their Black and brown Muslim students and how they’re willing to uphold these Zionist systems. People think, ‘oh, they’re just funding Israel; it has nothing to do with students’. But, students’ lives are being threatened.”
Mustre-del Río said student-led organizations supported her during those difficult times and made her realize she was not alone in what she experienced. It’s also why Hussein turned to registered student organizations at UW, like the Somali Student Association (SSA) and Muslim Student Association (MSA), which helped Hussein report her roommates and advised her on writing a statement.
Additionally, Safa Jamal, co-vice president of MSA and a junior at UW, checked in with Hussein each week until Hussein moved out of her dorm on March 16.
“Everyone was checking in on her and looking out for each other,” Jamal said. “The biggest thing that we could provide is community, because a lot of the other things that we had tried were just not working. It had gotten to the point where [Hussein] needed legal help in that situation. [MSA and SSA] were just helping her by looking over her statement, taking those actions and being there for her.”
Jamal said Hussein’s experience at UW isn’t an isolated incident; other MSA members and friends have expressed feeling unsafe walking around campus because they’re visibly Muslim. On Feb. 12, the UW Police Department (UWPD) received a report that a Muslim woman had her hijab removed while at knifepoint in the U-District.
“There’s been a bit of a disconnect between the administration, MSA and other cultural organizations within the Muslim community,” Jamal said. “We’ve had meetings with the [UW] president and [the] dean of student life, and there’s just been a lot of words but not action in terms of how we feel safe on campus. There’s a really big pushback over a new bill that Associated Students of the University of Washington (ASUW) was trying to pass with the Students Supporting Israel organization, and I know that a lot of our community members were trying to turn that bill down.”
During a Jan. 17 ASUW Senate meeting, a resolution condemning Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel failed to advance due to Senate members pointing out the Islamophobic and dehumanizing language used against Palestinians.
Across campus, continued student-led efforts have condemned UW’s active connections to Israel. Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return UW (SUPER UW) called out the university for its “War in the Middle East Lecture Series,” which SUPER UW states “upholds Zionism, condemns Palestinian resistance and attempts to demobilize the movement of Palestinians.” SUPER UW has demanded the university cut ties with Israel by ceasing any study abroad programs to the country.
Additionally, some student activists have brought attention to UW’s connection to Boeing, which has a $927 million contract approved by the U.S. Department of Defense to provide military weapons to the IDF. In 2022, Boeing announced it would fund a $10 million engineering building on UW’s campus.
The university’s conduct has pushed MSA to consider creating a system where Muslim students can report being harassed or threatened. Jamal said MSA could use this documentation to pressure UW to take action.
“One of the biggest things is bringing light to the situation and then calling on the [administration] to do something about it,” Jamal said. “I think this year students have been mobilizing more whenever there is something that’s happening that’s affecting our community, and that’s a big thing because there is power in numbers. We’re hoping that the administration does something tangible about this by putting something out there that makes students feel safer or at least just addresses the situation with more transparency.”
On March 28, SSA organized a walk-out protest in support of Hussein, endorsed by multiple student-led organizations, including MSA. Students gathered at the Quad and marched toward the administration building where President Cauce’s office is located. Although the protest focused on advocating for Hussein, it also came weeks after SSA, the African Student Association and several other organizations received letters threatening Muslim students for supporting Palestine.
One of the letters read, in part, “If you hate the West so much, if you hate America, Israel and Europe then leave. Go back to whatever shithole you came from. Stop coming here.”
An SSA member at the protest who wanted to remain anonymous due to privacy concerns expressed their frustrations and heartbreak about what Hussein was going through. They said the protest was SSA’s way of working toward a solution for their community on campus.
“We shared [Hussein’s statement], and other people shared it. It was a good idea because the university wasn’t going to take any steps to combat that issue, and it seemed like this was something that they wanted to sweep under the rug. It’s very sad, and we won’t let that happen,” the SSA member said.
Hussein expressed she hopes her experience doesn’t become a norm for other students on UW’s campus.
“I don’t want anybody to experience this because this weighs heavy on you, especially [as] a young college student,” Hussein said. “For the university to claim that they care about their students but remain silent on Islamophobia and hate crimes — it’s sad. It’s sad when adults say that they’re for you, but then they’re not there at all. Actions speak louder than words.”
Pressure on UW to take accountability is also extending beyond student organizations. The Washington chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a civil rights and advocacy organization, was also present at the Justice for Isha protest. It released a statement requesting UW condemn those who sent the hate letters to the BIPOC organizations. CAIR-WA also published a statement requesting a full investigation from the Seattle Police Department and UWPD into the hate crime committed against the Muslim woman who was assaulted while walking through the U-District on Feb. 12.
Imraan Siddiqi, executive director of CAIR-WA, said the organization isn’t surprised at the rise of hate crimes committed against Muslim students, citing an emerging trend of public discourse around the rights of Palestinians and the recent passings of anti-boycott laws aimed at blocking negative financial impacts on major companies providing funds to Israel.
“Since the genocide in Gaza started, there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by where we haven’t gotten some type of inquiry from different sectors of the community, mostly from grade school students and kids who go to public schools who are now being harassed and bullied,” Siddiqi said. “We have been in close touch with different student groups at places like University of Washington and Seattle University.”
“Since this whole crisis has unfolded, the university has projected the whole entire conflict [by] issuing full-throated statements regarding the Oct. 7 attacks, but not really saying anything of substance when it comes to now 32,000 Palestinians who’ve been brutally murdered,” Siddiqi continued. “There’s not been any official voice that has come from the university regarding that, and that feeds into the massive level of frustration of students on campus.”
Siddiqi added UW hasn’t been priortizing the well-being of Muslim students the same way as Israeli students, citing Hussein’s situation as a prime example of this. CAIR-WA’s legal team has been working with both Hussein and the victim of the Feb. 12 hate crime in the U-District to provide them legal advice and consultation.
“Not only do I want to fight for my situation, but I want to fight for UW and HFS to change their policies, because you’re telling me your policy is perfect? Clearly it’s not, because I almost got stabbed,” Hussein said.
The investigation UW has opened into Hussein’s situation is currently ongoing. Hussein says that the university needs to act quickly before what she calls “the inevitable” happens.
“We’re Black and Muslim, and we can’t change our skin color. Especially in America, where they perceive Muslim and Black people negatively — and wherever I go, it’s always going to affect me,” she said.
Marian Mohamed is the associate editor of Real Change. She oversees our weekly features. Contact her at [email protected].
Read more of the April 10–16, 2024 issue.