Members of the Muslim community at NYU were left shocked and disturbed after a student discovered prayer mats soaked in urine and inappropriate graffiti etched onto the walls in a prayer room on Bobst Library’s lower floors Thursday. The university has since launched an investigation into the incident as a hate crime and act of Islamophobia, and said that those responsible would be subjected to “the most serious sanctions available.”
The vandalism included chalked graffiti illustrating male genitalia, alongside the letters “AEPI” — which student groups claimed was in reference to the off-campus Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi, a group suspended in 2015 after being found responsible for hazing. NYU informed students and faculty in emails sent to the university community that the Department of Campus Safety and New York City’s Hate Crimes Task Force will investigate the desecration.
Two hours after the incident was reported, several on-campus student groups — including the Muslim Student Association, Black Muslim Initiative and the Muslim Graduate Student Group — called the incident a hate crime and a “direct threat to our safety” in a post on Instagram. The groups demanded the immediate expulsion of the perpetrator, a public condemnation of the attack and a commitment to installing additional security cameras outside the prayer rooms in Bobst. Silver sophomore Khadyja Gueye, also a chairperson of MSA, said the incident is a result of the university’s failure to protect its Muslim students.
“Let’s be honest, students know there are cameras on — when they go into a building they have to scan their IDs, so they know if they do something like that, it is easy for them to get caught,” Gueye told WSN. “But the fact they are comfortable enough to do something like that is because they feel like the university has given them that space and has allowed them to commit acts of Islamophobia without repercussion.”
Campus Safety head Fountain Walker condemned the desecration on Friday, calling it “hateful and repugnant.” In a post by NYU’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, the group accused President Linda Mills of enabling “anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic hate crime” and criticized her for not issuing a public condemnation of the incident. SJP referenced the New York City Police Department’s sweep of last year’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment outside Gould Plaza, when police arrested students, faculty and alumni during Maghrib prayer.
Faiyaz Jaffer, the associate chaplain of Global Spiritual Life at NYU, said in a Thursday statement that the incident was part of a broader uptick in instances of Islamophobia “in the context of increasing governmental policies that marginalize and criminalize Muslim communities.” In the last few months, the Trump administration has cracked down on pro-Palestinian protests, detaining and revoking visas of at least nine noncitizen students and faculty at colleges across the United States.
The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a statement on Friday calling on the university, state and federal law enforcement to investigate the vandalism. CAIR-NY director Afaf Nasher called the incident a “vile act of desecration” and “a direct assault on the Muslim community” at NYU and in the country.
“I had a meeting in the library earlier and I felt like even if I have to pray, I’m not going to go downstairs and pray — I’m going to actually go outside, cross the street and go to the Islamic Center prayer room to pray,” Gueye said. “But even doing that I was a bit hesitant, because when you’re praying, you’re in your most vulnerable state. You have to understand that anything could happen while you’re praying because it’s like you’re almost powerless.”
A group of Muslim student leaders on campus drafted a letter to the university, calling for the protection of Muslim students on campus and demanding immediate action to address the “wider anti-Muslim sentiment.”
A Muslim student, who requested to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, said news of the vandalism reached the Muslim community “during what was supposed to be a special time,” as it occurred during the second annual Eid Fest — an event hosted by NYU Shuruq in collaboration with the other Muslim student organizations.
“We had to break the news to everybody that was there and you could just tell how sad everybody felt,” the student said. “It felt like this incident was a message to us that Muslims can’t be safe and that we can’t enjoy ourselves in that sense, as we’re celebrating our holiday.”
In the last year, NYU has added multifaith prayer spaces on campus “designed to provide accommodation for those of Islamic faith during Ramadan and for the quiet reflective practices of other faiths and spiritual communities.” However, for students like Gueye, the Thursday desecration elicited concern for their safety and has led them to be more “vigilant” and “wary” of their surroundings.
“We need to show that, at the end of the day, Muslims have a voice in this community, we have a presence in the broader NYU community, and you can’t really get rid of us,” the student said. “You can’t discourage us from using the spaces that we deserve to use just as anybody else. Our presence is always going to be heard, this is not going to scare us. This is just going to motivate us to be who we are and to take up space as we should be.”
Contact Liyana Illyas at [email protected].
