A conversation with Rutgers Law Professor and Eagleton Faculty Associate Sahar Aziz about her new book, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom.

Watch the recording here.

Aziz is a Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar at Rutgers Law School. Additionally, Aziz serves as an Eagleton Faculty Associate and was just named a 2021 Soros Equality Fellow.

From the Publisher:

Why does a country with religious liberty enmeshed in its legal and social structures produce such overt prejudice and discrimination against Muslims? Sahar Aziz’s groundbreaking book demonstrates how race and religion intersect to create what she calls the Racial Muslim. Comparing discrimination against immigrant Muslims with the prejudicial treatment of Jews, Catholics, Mormons, and African American Muslims during the twentieth century, Aziz explores the gap between America’s aspiration for and fulfillment of religious freedom. With America’s demographics rapidly changing from a majority white Protestant nation to a multiracial, multireligious society, this book is an in dispensable read for understanding how our past continues to shape our present—to the detriment of our nation’s future.

About Professor Sahar Aziz:

Sahar Aziz is Professor of Law, Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar, and Middle East and Legal Studies Scholar at Rutgers University Law School. Professor Aziz’s scholarship adopts an interdisciplinary approach to examine intersections of national security, race, and civil rights with a focus on the adverse impact of national security laws and policies on racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in the U.S. Her research also investigates the relationship between authoritarianism, terrorism, and rule of law in Egypt. She is the founding director of the interdisciplinary Rutgers Center for Security, Race, and Rights (csrr.rutgers.edu). She is also a faculty affiliate of the African American Studies Department at Rutgers University-Newark and a member of the Rutgers-Newark Chancellor’s Commission on Diversity and Transformation. Professor Aziz is an editor for the Arab Law Quarterly and the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Professor Aziz teaches courses on national security, critical race theory, Islamophobia, evidence, torts, and Middle East law.