Michigan’s chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations saw more than a 200 percent increase in civil rights complaints reported, according to its 2023 report, “Gaza and the Rise in Bigotry against Michigan Muslims”, released on Tuesday.

Nationally, CAIR received 8,061 complaints – 495 of which from Michigan – in 2023, its highest number recorded in its 30-year history, its 2024 Civil Rights Report, “Fatal: The Resurgence of Anti-Muslim Hate”, released on Tuesday, read.

CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid said about half of the complaints happened in the last three months of the year after Oct. 7. Walid said the trend of increasing civil rights complaints seems to be continuing into 2024.

“We’ve linked the major reason for the serious uptick of Islamophobia across the country, including in Michigan, to the political rhetoric surrounding the siege on Gaza,” he said. “The last three months of 2023 were at a record pace of anti-Muslim sentiments being expressed, especially the quelling of freedom of speech at public schools and universities against not only students, but also teachers.”

The report said CAIR-MI saw a shift in the type of reported civil rights complaints, as hate crime and education discrimination made up nearly 200 complaints from the year. In CAIR-MI’s 24 years of existence, those categories lead the type of complaints only in 2018, the report said.

The 2022 CAIR-MI Civil Rights Report stated law enforcement discrimination and employment discrimination as the top two civil rights complaint categories. School-related incidents made up the third most civil rights complaints in 2022.

CAIR-MI’s state report said the organization represented about 80 new legal clients and 20 existing clients in 2023. Nearly $200,000 in damages was paid to different clients throughout the year. The cases include two separate cases of law enforcement forcing Muslim women to remove hijabs for booking photos and a woman terminated for asking for a later lunch break to accommodate the Ramadan hours of fasting. 

CAIR’s national report also outlined incidents in different states. In one Michigan case, a school counselor reportedly called an eighth-grade Palestinian Muslim student a “terrorist” in December 2023. CAIR won a settlement against the city of Detroit in 2023 for three Muslim men calling the police on someone having a mental health crisis and being arrested instead in 2020.

A Pew Research Center poll conducted in February found 70 percent of Muslims and 89 percent of Jews say discrimination against their own group has increased since the start of the Israel’s war on Gaza.

Walid said people should report suspicious behavior to the police or to CAIR-MI. He recommended taking pictures and videos of strange behavior or making direct threats so CAIR can log and report the behavior.

“If there is a strange person who is lurking in the community in Dearborn or around cultural centers and mosques, those people should be reported immediately to law enforcement,” he said. “If community members feel uncomfortable going directly to law enforcement, they should contact us. We (CAIR) will put in the call to either the local or federal law enforcement agencies.”