Viral post detailing Islamophobia and racism in UW housing sparks outcry
Questions remain, relevant documents for now inaccessible, reporting stalled.
By Sofia Schwarzwalder
The piece I read this week is about an ongoing injustice in the University of Washington’s community among two students. The case is fascinating in terms of journalism since one of the parties decided to revoke an interview with the school’s newspaper. The case is of a student who claims to have been harassed and threatened by a roommate who expressed Islamaphobic and otherwise racist remarks to this student on seemingly multiple occasions. The targeted individual uploaded a post on social media detailing this hatred and outed UW Housing and Food Services (HSF) for their lack of interference and concern for the case. The post garnered the attention of UW students demanding the situation be addressed, but the University has yet to publicly respond to these claims. However, it is stated that HSF may not be the entity at the school legally allowed to disclose such information vital to this case. There is mention of documentation from a prior incident from the UWPD, which the student reported a few months back. The individual decided to revoke the record and their promise of supporting documentation due to backlash from the community and HSF. The student is frustrated with the minimal action and help but decided their safety is more important as of now. Overall, this case was interesting as we have been working on projects where individuals do not typically revoke their interviews and provided information. Seeing this happen exhibits the troubles in journalism of individuals who would like to remain private in their personal matters despite the inaction from administrators at UW.
