Missouri student protests ‘American Sniper’ showing on campus

A protest has started over the screening of American Sniper at the University of Missouri when a Muslim student spoke out about her feelings that the film wrongly depicted Muslims and Arabs. According to the Columbia Missourian, the film is scheduled to show April 17 and 18 in the Wrench Auditorium in Memorial Union.

When it was first announced last week that the movie would be screening, it sparked debate amongst veterans and Muslims, with the latter writing letters to protest the film. In a report by College Fix, one Muslim student, and former president of the Muslim Student Organization, Farah El-Jayyousi, said the showing of the film would make her feel “unsafe” and demanded an “apology and explanation” as to how and why the movie was even selected for Mizzou audiences.

El-Jayyousi, wrote that, “This film is blatant racist, colonialist propaganda that should not be shown under any circumstances and especially not endorsed by a branch of student government that purports to represent me and have my best interests in mind.”

This letter was later published in The Maneater on March 3 in a letter to the editor, which later initiated a debate over freedom of speech on The Maneater’s Facebook page.

One commenter who opposed El-Jayyousi’s article said, “What you are asking for is censorship, by any and every meaning of the word. By all means, speak out, and speak out loudly, against the hate and bigotry that is demonstrably on the rise.”

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