Victory! UCLA's Islamic Studies Program To Re-Open In Fall 2011

by Carol Scott · 2011-04-11 08:47:00 UTC
Topics: show more

Every morning across the country, Muslim students tell their parents they're scared to go to school -- because they'll be beaten and taunted for practicing Islam. Politicians flog fears of "the other" to drum up votes and campaign donations. Peaceful American citizens are branded as "terrorists" because of their skin color or their faith.

But on Friday, a student movement against blind Islamophobia scored a major victory -- UCLA's Islamic Studies program will re-open this fall after being frozen since 2007.

Last fall, students rallied, demonstrated, and attracted more than 5,400 signatures from the international Change.org community who called on the UCLA administration to bring back the program. These activists, led by student Ilona Gerbakher, argued that the fate of UCLA's program was a matter of national importance.  As we at Change.org blogged about - and publicized - their campaign, students kept the petition updated and finely-targeted, marshalling national support to show UCLA administrators that this was far larger than a campus issue.  

The program had been closed to new applicants since 2007 after complaints about administrative issues and the organization of the program. But even with a new department chair - Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl - and new policies in place, UCLA's administration had still not announced plans to re-open the program.

So in September 2010, students sprang into action. They created a website, a YouTube channel and a Facebook group to connect with supporters on campus and beyond. The Change.org petition, spearheaded by Gerbakher, spread like wildfire, sending thousands of emails into the inboxes of the faculty members who had the power to re-open the program. And on the ground, students held in-person rallies and petition drives during key faculty meetings. The campaign was reported on by campus media, blogs and even Newsweek and the L.A. Times.

And on Friday, April 8, their work paid off: the Islamic Studies program sent an email to potential applicants, telling them that they were now looking forward to accepting students this fall!

Here's a letter from Ilona Gerbakher to Islamic Studies petition signers:

Dear Change.org:

A funny thing happened to me on Friday: I learned that a group of students, using only the power of the internet, a few posters and a single loudspeaker can affect a huge, seemingly faceless bureaucracy for the better. On Friday I found out that the UCLA Islamic Studies program, one of the oldest and most prestigious such programs in the country, would officially be re-opening for admissions in the fall of 2011.

This program was being dismantled, or in bureaucrat-speak "put on hold" for various reasons, some of which included institutional apathy and administrative mismanagement. I, The Muslim Student Association at UCLA, and the global community here at Change.org came together to protest this willful closure of a wonderful and globally important program. Over 5,000 of you signed our petition. Dozens of UCLA students chanted at rallies, created posters, stood outside of administrative buildings during votes, and generally made a nuisance of themselves. I spoke at rallies, carried posters, yelled into a loudspeaker; in short, we at Change.org and in the UCLA community made our voices heard, and, in the end, the UCLA administration listened.

The success of the Save Islamic Studies Campaign is about more than just a program re-opening for admissions. This is about positive, grassroots, student-led educational activism. This is about the internet revolution, the democracy of social media, and the fact that today, more than ever, the voices of change cannot and will not be silenced by the combined forces of a hostile academic or political system. We in the campaign stand in solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters in the Middle East, who are changing an entire region using the very tools that we have used in our (now-successful) campaign. These students are the proof that our ideas, our social media, and our voices will be a major force for positive global change in the 21st century.

With gratitude for all of the help that you at Change.org have given us,
Ilona Gerbakher and the Save Islamic Studies Campaign at UCLA

Photo credit: UCLAIslamicStudies.com

Carol Scott is the Education Editor for Change.org.

RELATED PETITION

Save UCLA's Islamic Studies Program
VICTORY!
5,470 People
PREVIOUS STORY:
America Needs College Grads: Stop Pell Grants From Being Slashed
NEXT STORY:
Student loans got you down? Start a petition.

COMMENTS (1)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.