The campus of the University of California, Berkeley. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

With global jihad in its ascendancy, UC Berkeley’s Hatem Bazian delivered a lecture at a private event in Dearborn, Michigan, last Friday entitled, “Islamaphobia: Muslim in the Public Square.” Given the multiple ISIS attacks on Paris and the fact that French and Belgian authorities continue to hunt down the accomplices, the timing was tone-deaf, to say the least.

As director of UC Berkeley’s Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project, Bazian displayed the usual fear-mongering, complete with divisive, politicized rhetoric. He blamed the alleged rise of “Islamophobia” in America — a claim that FBI hate crime statistics for 2014 continues to contradict — on “a massive demographic change . . . that has made individuals still living in the 1950s uncomfortable.” He also said that a “shrinking middle class” has induced “resentment” against Muslims.

Perhaps what’s fueling resentment, if indeed it exists, are Middle East studies professors like Bazian who insist on assigning victimhood to Muslim-Americans and villainy to the West, while accusing anyone who encourages introspection and reform within Islam of being a bigot.

Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast representative for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum. She can be reached atstillwell@meforum.org.

This article was originally published by the Campus Watch blog.