Needless to say, this rise in anti-Sharia legislation is directly impacting the physical safety of Arabs, Muslims, and/or South Asians. It is not the only factor, but it is doubtless a part of it. When legislation or legislators seek to repudiate a group’s belief system, you can bet that people are going to feel they have more of a green light to go after that group. For example, hate crimes against Muslims increased by 67 percent in 2015 according to FBI statistics—a year when many of these anti-Sharia bills were on the table.

XREF: Connects to other sources on the 'green light' effect where institutional rhetoric sanctions discrimination — resonates with work on how political rhetoric correlates with bias incidents.

QUESTION: Does the data isolate anti-Sharia legislation as a driver of the 67% hate crime spike, or are other factors confounding?

Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Gl…, loc. 638