A 13-year-old Muslim girl said she is afraid after a Hayward classmate called her a terrorist and pulled at her hijab last week.
“He asked me twice if I was a terrorist,” the Cesar Chavez Middle School seventh-grader said Wednesday. “Then he pulled my scarf to the side.”
The girl said she told the teacher, who just told the boy to stop. So she went to her next teacher, who reported what had happened to the school vice principal.
“I felt really scared and didn’t know what to do,” the girl said Wednesday. She said she will finish the school year, but wants to be home-schooled starting in the eighth grade.
“As soon as we heard about this, we reached out to the student and her parent,” said Sabrina Aranda, Hayward Unified spokeswoman. School leaders met with the girl and her mother Wednesday to ensure she feels safe and comfortable, Aranda said.
The meeting with school leaders went well, said Brice Hamack of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area.
“The school district and principal seem willing to work with the family and student body so that the student feels comfortable and this doesn’t happen again,” he said.