UNC-CH attack renews stress over politics, faith after 9/11

Just three days after a motorist hit nine people in UNC-Chapel Hill's Pit area, students gathered again in the open plaza at lunchtime Monday, tempers simmering despite the chilly rain.

Call the incident terrorism, conservative students insisted at the rally. Others said that the protest would only further divide the campus and alienate Muslims. Some students picked up tiny U.S. flags but didn't feel strongly enough to join either protest.

One thing is clear: The university is struggling with issues of politics, free speech and religion.

Tension has escalated on the Chapel Hill campus ever since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Mohammed Taheri-azar was a freshman then. Taheri-azar, now a 22-year-old UNC-CH graduate charged in the Pit attack, has told police that he meant to kill people to avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world.

His declaration was stunning and drew national attention to Chapel Hill -- again.

In Taheri-azar's second year at UNC-CH, the university landed in federal court -- and the national spotlight -- for requiring incoming students to read a book about the Quran.

This academic year, Muslim students have complained twice that the student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, treated them insensitively. The paper published a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad and a column that advocated strip-searching Muslims at airport security checkpoints. Protests and vigils followed in both cases.

Sue Estroff, a professor of social medicine, says there has been a lot of soul-searching on the campus. Before the recent attack, another professor had posted on an electronic mailing list that she was concerned about the climate for Muslim students.

"Times are different," Estroff said. "This isn't just about speech. There is a war going on, and the stakes are higher. ... It's not at all surprising to me that things blow up."

Investigators continue to sort out the motives of Taheri-azar, who is charged with driving a Jeep Cherokee sport utility vehicle into the Pit at lunchtime, injuring nine people. University officials say there is no evidence that the actions were related to any past or current campus controversies.

The attack resulted in no serious injuries, but its aftermath has left open wounds. The Muslim Students Association at UNC-CH immediately issued a condemnation.

"Regardless of what his intentions prove to be, we wholeheartedly deplore this action, and trust that our fellow classmates will be able to dissociate the actions of this one disturbed individual from the beliefs of the Muslim community as a whole," the group's statement said.

Muslims feel beset

Muslim students feel beleaguered, said Winston Crisp, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs.

"I think that they're feeling like, why do they have to keep defending themselves and defending Islam whenever someone at the extreme end does something?" he said.

Last month, Muslim students held a sit-in at the offices of The Daily Tar Heel, after the paper published the Muhammad cartoon. Salma Mirza, a Muslim student from Buffalo, N.Y., who organized the sit-in, said students felt betrayed by repeated anti-Muslim rhetoric.

"It's a lot to take as a minority on campus," she said.

After the Pit attack happened, Crisp said, students rallied around one another. "By and large, the atmosphere on campus has been one of tolerance and respect and unity," he said.

At Monday's protest, though, two sides of the "Is it terrorism?" debate faced off with dueling signs and angry words.

"It's very possible that what happened was because of one guy out of the whole community," said Kris Wampler, a senior from Charlotte who was one of the plaintiffs in the Quran lawsuit against the university in 2002. "It's also very possible there's a deeper problem with Islamic fundamentalism."