CHARTIERS VALLEY, PA — The nation’s largest Muslim and civil rights advocacy group is asking state and federal authorities to investigate a fight that broke out in a girls’ bathroom at Chartiers Valley High School as a hate crime. A minute-long video posted on a social media site showed a 14-year-old Syrian refugee wearing a hijab shielding herself against punches, being knocked to the floor and being repeatedly hit.
The girl was treated for a concussion and severe bruising and admitted overnight Friday to a local hospital, according to a classmate who told news outlets the attack continued after the video stopped. The Council on American-Islamic Relationsmhas asked state and federal law enforcement agencies to investigate the incident as a hate crime. CAIR-Pittsburgh is offering legal support to the student’s family.
For now, Collier Township police said criminal charges are pending, but they won’t include hate crime charges — a conclusion CAIR-Pittsburgh President Safdar Khwaja rejects. He thinks bias was the motivating factor in the assault, or at least exacerbated it.
“We don’t believe the motive was random and was at the spur of the moment. We believe there was a bias,” he told television station WTAE.
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At one point in the video, the aggressor said to the Muslim girl: “You’re lucky you’re from another language, because I will crush you, [expletive].”
“It’s hard to piece [together] the audio, but some of it does sound like there’s a statement about language,” Wasi Mohammad, the executive director of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “That was a concern.”
The school district says the maximum disciplinary action available in its policies will be enforced, but didn’t say if both students would be disciplined.
“Chartiers Valley School District does not condone or tolerate violence of any kind and will enforce consequences to the fullest extent, according to district policies and procedures,” the district said in a statement to the Post-Gazette.
Khwaja told the Post-Gazette the school district’s response should go beyond disciplinary actions, and that the assault “should be addressed as a violent incident with a juvenile involved.”
The school district should provide “some degree of training” to encourage more tolerant behavior on the part of students, he said. The Washington, D.C.-based national organization reports “an unprecedented spike in bigotry targeting American Muslims, immigrants and members of other minority groups since the election of Donald Trump as president.”
The video was posted on Facebook by high school senior Alexis Work, who told WTAE the fight started when another student wanted to “vape” with an e-cigarette in the stall. The Muslim girl said that wasn’t allowed and the fight ensued, Work said. She wasn’t present when the altercation occurred, but received the video from another student
Work said she decided to share the video to encourage change.
“I want things to be different so that girls aren’t being bullied in the bathroom,” Work told the Post-Gazette.
The video was widely shared, “but a lot of our students have to face this every day without that level of exposure and without any hope for a remedy,” Mohammad told the Post-Gazette.
The girl and her family moved to the United States from Syria a few years ago after they spent two years in a refugee camp, Khwaja told WTAE.
“They were fleeing anarchy, violence, and the complete breakdown of the social system, governing system so they came to a civilized place and we all assured them this is the most civilized place in the world,” Khwaja said. “To see this kind of violence take place, it’s very disappointing.”
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