Within the last year, two Minnesota school districts have reached agreements with the U.S. departments of Education and Justice to settle complaints of harassment brought by Somali-American parents and a civil rights group.
The complaints alleged that district officials failed to take action when students made “inflammatory and derogatory” comments about Somalis and Muslims in school and on social media. There also were allegations that a school bus driver refused to pick up Somali-American students.
The immigrant population in Minnesota from East Africa, and Somalia specifically, has burgeoned in recent years to the point that the state now has the largest Somali population in the U.S. — between 29,000 and 36,000 — according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released in October.
As Somali high school students move into higher education, campus leaders say they are reaching out to Somali communities to recruit students and to enhance their collegiate experiences once they enter college.
“Communities in Minnesota that have a new, sizable Somali population have struggled with their integration into the local societies,” says Anise McDowell, Coordinator of Student Engagement at the University of Minnesota’s Multicultural Center for Academic Excellence.
“However, this has been the case for most new immigrant populations. In this case, I think part of it is because their culture is very different from the communities they have moved into,” McDowell explains, adding that those communities are “predominantly White, Lutheran or Catholic and the Somalis are Black, and they are Muslim.”
She also says attire and language differences contribute to a lack of understanding.
