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A Message from AASA's Political Action and Education Committee (PAEC)

On Saturday, February 18th, the Associated Press broke the story that the New York Police Department had from 2006 to 2009 conducted extensive surveillance against Muslim Student Associations (MSAs) at seventeen universities across the northeast, including Yale. The NYPD monitored MSA websites on a daily basis, using information its agents collected to create profiles of affiliated students and professors and compiling the data in weekly reports. In some cases, surveillance was more intrusive; the AP reports that NYPD officers established an undercover safehouse to monitor the Muslim American community at Rutgers University in New Jersey and placed an informant on a whitewater rafting trip sponsored by the Muslim Student Association of City College of New York. Such surveillance, the full extent of which is still unknown, can only be interpreted as indicative of a policy of religious profiling against Muslim Americans. We, the Political Action and Education Committee (AASA-PAEC) of the Asian American Students Alliance, must condemn such profiling as morally reprehensible and distinctly un-American in principle, violating in spirit the civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.

The NYPD had no reasonable grounds on which to justify its surveillance; those targeted were ordinary college students monitored solely on the basis of their religious beliefs. None were ever charged with a crime. Yet when pressed on February 21st about the allegations, New York City Mayor Bloomberg was dismissive, suggesting that racial and religious profiling is acceptable under the guise of protectecting national security. While all of us can agree that safeguarding our nation's well-being will require continued vigilance and strength, it is deplorable to characterize personal freedoms as inherently incompatible and subservient to national security. We condemn the latent prejudices embodied in these actions. We believe that religious and racial profiling is a problem not merely of concern to the Muslim American community, but affects all Americans, particularly those of minority status. We, AASA-PAEC, will stand together with MSA in any way we can to provide the resources, man-power, and support for any response MSA plans. We are grateful that President Levin has publicly affirmed the support of the Yale administration, for it reiterates the importance of the strength of coordinated and decisive action of our community. Though the story is disconcerting and intolerable, we believe this affords our entire community a promising opportunity to effect real change.


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