PUBLISHED:February 02, 2010

Symposium examines "New Face of Discrimination"

On Feb. 5, 2010, scholars, professionals, and community leaders will gather at Duke Law School to examine public perception of Islam, the civil rights of its adherents, and how those issues have evolved since Sept. 11, 2001.

The daylong symposium, The New Face of Discrimination: "Muslim" in America, is hosted by the Duke Forum for Law & Social Change (DFLSC).

DFLSC Editor-in-Chief Matt Doeringer ’10, said the symposium will feature a broad range of perspectives from presenters including Mary Rose Oakar, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and former U.S. representative from Ohio, and Aziz Huq, assistant professor of law at the University of Chicago School of Law and counsel on several cases concerning detention and national security policy.

Panelists and presenters will discuss their papers in the latest issue of the DFLSC, covering topics such as religious diversity in the workplace, and changes in the portrayal of Muslims in American popular culture.

“We hope the symposium will provide a forum to discuss and develop realistic solutions,” Doeringer said. “Many of these issues, especially those relating to how Muslims are perceived as a part of American society, received a significant amount of attention immediately following 9/11. Since that time, the level of discussion has abated, but the underlying problems have become firmly entrenched in the foundations of American society.”

View a full symposium agenda at http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dflsc/symposium/vol2. Panels I and II will be webcast live; the keynote presentation also will be broadcast at 2 p.m. Eastern time on Duke University’s UStream channel.