Page 5NEWSJanuary 30, 2014 | www.marcolian.com

meant to communicate the value of a woman. In Kuwait, there is no law requiring women to wear a hijab, but Kamal willingly chooses to do so.

“Our religion thinks the woman is like a diamond,” Kamal said.

“It’s almost like (being) a queen,” AlAbdullah said. “Not everyone can just go and kiss the queen.”

AlAbdullah explained that a wom-an’s hair embodies her beauty and can be attractive to men.

“That’s why we cover it,” she said. “If you want to wear it, you can wear it. That’s fine. If you don’t, you don’t.”

In addition to being seen as outsid-ers, living in Marietta makes finding meals each day a trying task for the women because they do not have easy access to affordable halal food. Simi-lar to kosher food in the Jewish faith, halal is meat that has been prepared humanely according to Islamic reli-gious texts. In the absence of halal, the women simply eat vegetables.

“We are strug-gling with every-thing,” AlAbdul-lah said.

Housing is also an issue. The students are un-able to live on campus for re-ligious reasons, contributing to feelings of isola-tion. To live in residence halls, the students would require a personal bath-room and a pri-vate environment. Without this, they cannot conveniently pray five times a day, as laid out by Is-lamic tradition. Additionally, The Ko-ran forbids being in the presence of al-cohol, a risk that cannot be eliminated in campus housing.

“If I were on campus, I would be involved in a lot of events, and I would meet more people,” Alostath said. “[The administration] probably should make private rooms for [us] on cam-pus…that would help.”

A few faculty administrators have recognized this issue, but it is more complex than it appears on the surface.

“Even if there was an all-female

dorm, it wouldn’t work because it’s not all Muslim-female,” Pastoor said.

Pastoor and Vice President for Di-versity and Inclusion Dr. Danford are considering visiting the Kuwaiti em-bassy in Washington, D.C. They will discuss the possibility of the Kuwaiti government funding the education of more women at Marietta College. If this happens, the administration wants to better prepare to meet the students’ needs.

“It’s unfair to bring them here if we can’t meet those requirements,” Pas-toor said.

Pastoor believes that Marietta Col-lege is not the only institution facing challenges in assimilating Muslim stu-dents. However, Marietta College has a larger population of them compared to similar colleges because of its petro-leum engineering program.

Though students and faculty may be more exposed to this culture, this does not mean the atmosphere has been entirely welcoming to these students. Kamal and AlAbdullah have both had problems in the classroom. On the

first day of her chemistry lab, Kamal felt re-jected by her peers when trying to find a partner for group work.

“ T h e y just look at me like I’m a stranger,” she said. “When I go to this class, I feel like every-body doesn’t like me.”

So dis-turbed by this, Kamal chose to drop the class.

On campus, these acts of discrimi-nation have been isolated events, ac-cording to Pastoor and the students. However, in the community, the preju-dice has been more pronounced. Kamal and AlAbdullah said children stare at them as they walk through Wal-Mart, pointing at their head garb and asking, “Mommy, what’s that?”

“We allowed them to live off cam-pus thinking that would take care of their needs,” Pastoor said. “I don’t think we gave a lot of thought to the fact that the community was not going

...Continued from front page.to be as welcoming.”

Local business owner Steve Bar-ros has lived in Marietta for 16 years. Having moved from New York City, Barros noticed the extreme absence of diversity in his new surroundings. Those who are not local could be sub-jected to discrimination, he said.

“There are people in this town that have never been on a bus, train or plane—that have never left this area,” Barros said.

Barros said that most of the people he has met in Marietta are genuinely nice, but others are “so close-minded it’s terrible.”

“I’m not just going to pinpoint Marietta,” he said. “You’ll find that everywhere.”

Oftentimes, the only cross-cultural education people have comes from the media, in which a few extremist groups have skewed many Americans’ percep-tions of Islam, Barros said. In Kuwait, however, children are taught about diverse cultures and religions from a young age, Kamal said.

“This is the American problem: you don’t know about us, but we know about you,” she said.

Alostath agreed that American me-dia give a false impression of people in her country.

“(They say) we have war, we live in the desert and we don’t have informa-tion,” she said.

Contrary to this assumption, Alo-stath said in Kuwait, people are helpful and live in close community with each other.

“White, black or whatever, we’re all the same,” she said. “We accept out-siders. We don’t have any trouble with that.”

Alostath, Kamal, and AlAbdullah desire more genuine interaction with Americans who are curious about their culture. Each woman is happy to answer questions rather than being a victim of assumption.

“I just want them to respect me like I respect them,” Kamal said.

Though many Americans have inac-curate impressions of Islam, the Muslim women hope their time in Marietta has changed the perspectives of the people with which they have interacted.

Kamal’s passive response to the man with the cross was not because of a lack of words. It was the result of her devo-tion to the teachings of the Islamic faith.

“I did not want to talk to him; I just wanted to smile because of Islam.”

“We allowed [the students] to live off campus think-ing that would take care of their needs. I don’t think we gave a lot of thought to the fact that the commu-nity was not going to be as welcoming.” -Robert Pastoor

Taylor Hanigoskytmh004@marietta.edu

The Marietta College Police De-partment formally filed charges against a Marietta man in connection to the Jan. 14 assault that occurred on cam-pus.

Robert Jonathon Huffman, 32, of 797 Channel Lane, was charged with assault, criminal trespass and sexual imposition, according to Interim Chief of Police Jim Weaver. Huffman, a reg-istered sex offender, has been in cus-tody since Jan. 16 when he was picked up by the Washington County Parole Authority and held on a parole viola-tion, Weaver said.

The alleged assault took place on Putnam Street in front of the Admis-sions House where the victim worked. The victim, who chose to remain anon-ymous, is a student at the college.

“It was mid-day, and I didn’t have a care in the world,” the student said. “You need to be aware and always

know your surroundings.”Senior Asher Saperstein was work-

ing in admissions when the victim hur-ried into the building immediately after the assault.

“Her eyes were all red and you could tell she was kind of distraught,” he said.

Saperstein sought help from a fac-ulty supervisor who was able to pro-vide support.

According to Weaver, Marietta is a statistically safe city with low crime rates, and he believes the assault was an isolated incident.

“Bad things happen everywhere, so we always have to prepare for that,” he said.

Weaver advises students to avoid walking alone or to call for a police escort.

The Marietta Police Department and the parole office have been work-ing closely with MCPD, but MCPD will lead the ongoing investigation.

MCPD files charges in assault

Photo by Taylor HanigoskyA student was assaulted Jan. 14 just outside the Admissions House.