More than two years after the murders of Muslim University of North Carolina Chapel Hill students Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha, and Razan Abu-Salha, UNC Chapel Hill’s Muslim Student Association has launched an app to document instances of Islamophobia on and around the campus. Called Project Mawla, the open-source, Web-based app released last December allows students and residents of Chapel Hill to document anti-Muslim incidents. According to its website, Project Mawla was created as a “counterpoint to the systemically supported notion that Islamophobia neither exists nor affects the livelihood of American Muslims.” While it is unfortunate that such an app is necessary, we commend these students for developing this innovative way to track and catalogue instances of bigotry.
