College students in Baltimore are calling for more security and protection for Muslim and Jewish students.
Since the October 7 start of the latest Israel-Hamas war, incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia are surging nationwide, with the amount of Islamophobic cases in Maryland nearly tripling.
This trend holds true at Johns Hopkins University, students say.
Steven Doctorman, a Jewish Hopkins student, says he faced personal verbal attacks on social media for challenging statements he viewed as antisemitic during a walkout for Palestine liberation.
“I got labeled as a genocide supporter and an oppressor on Side Chat, which is an anonymous platform used for students to talk,” he said.
Kisa, a Muslim student using a pseudonym to avoid retaliation, says she was cornered by a group of students in October who accused her and her friends of painting a Palestinian flag on a Hopkins statue.
“One of them was very, very aggressive with us and was insinuating quite a few things that were very racist and Islamophobic,” Kisa said. “He literally had us like, up against the chain that separates the walkway and the greenery. So we couldn’t go anywhere until another girl from their group intervened and forced him to stop.”
Both students say that university leaders have not adequately addressed these incidents, or promoted safety effectively.
Read more (and listen) at WYPR.
