On the first day of voting in this year’s Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) elections, an anonymous user of campus social media app Fizz shared a screenshot of their ballot showing a vote against the $175,000 funding allocation to the Muslim Student Union (MSU).
“MSU demanding $175k of YOUR mandatory ASSU fees for religion?? VOTE NO ON MSU. Fund your own religious beliefs, don’t tax everyone else,” the user wrote.
A flurry of posts followed. Dozens of back-and-forth posts on the app circulated, some of which included Islamophobic tropes. One student posted a photo of people wearing burqas, a full-body garment worn by some Muslim women, captioned with, “ASSU’s America.”
Within hours, what most expected to be nothing more than a routine approval vote had erupted into a campus-wide controversy.
The MSU funding request eventually passed with 75.81% of voters supporting the measure, but the conversations the request raised have continued.
“What is happening to MSU on Fizz is Islamophobic, plain and simple…the hate on Fizz represents a loud minority — one that should be ashamed of the divisive, discriminatory rhetoric they are spreading,” David Sengthay ’26, chair of the Undergraduate Senate, wrote to The Daily.
Last Thursday, Stanford Political Union, a voluntary student organization (VSO) and nonpartisan group focused on bridging civic divides, hosted an event titled “Stanford and Religion” to address the controversy.
“It was a great dialogue,” said Baraa Abdelghne ‘27, one of MSU’s co-presidents.
Both Abdelghne and MSU co-president Hashem Albezreh ’27 spoke extensively about the request at the event.
“A large portion of our budget goes to Ramadan…students need to have a sustainable option to break their fast on campus for this month,” Albezreh said.
Albezreh also pointed to the high cost of renting spaces for VSO organizations on campus, particularly for religious groups that lack a permanent physical space.
“The Stanford University system for providing venues for VSOs is one that is extremely expensive…more than $35,000 was spent just this past year for simply getting spaces,” he said.
Albezreh also focused on MSU’s programming beyond religious services.
“MSU is not a VSO that only serves Muslims on campus…more than 80% of MSU events are open to all students, including weekly homeless feeding service, political advocacy workshops and inter-faith dialogues,” he said.
Though some participants expressed concern about the funding, no students were willing to speak on the record about their vote against MSU’s funding request.
Albezreh said it was “dangerous” for conversations to take place only on Fizz.
“There is no accountability for making sure information is correct,” he said. “It allows people to combine their reasoning with more extreme attitudes, like Islamophobia.”
Other conversations at the SPU event focused on access to dining halls and finding community during Ramadan. Several students noted that many dining halls close around 8 p.m., leaving many Muslim students without University-provided options.
“My first year on campus, I was nervous about being alone during Ramadan. But the MSU makes sure Muslim students don’t feel that way,” Undergraduate Senator Laila Ali ’28 wrote to The Daily. “Especially during a time when many of us are far from home, that sense of community matters deeply.”
Event attendees also considered the implications of using student funding to support religious organizations.
“It is imperative to ask the broader normative question of whether or not ASSU should be funding religious organizations,” said attendee Vish Karthikeyan ’27. “While technically the Muslim Student Union events are open to everyone, I do believe that a lot of people are just not comfortable [going] to an event…so from that perspective, the $175,000 is concerning.”
In several SPU breakout groups, some spoke about the need for increased transparency on grant requests before voting.
Sengthay defended the process as very transparent. After multiple rounds of review, “the [MSU funding] application…[was] placed on the Spring ballot by the Elections Commissioner in March, where a financial summary of the entire application was made publicly available to all students,” he wrote.
Abdelghne also questioned the all-or-nothing nature of voting on budgets.
“There needs to be more transparency throughout the process of assigning budgets, so people are not shocked by just seeing $175,000, where your decision either eliminates the group from existing or allows it to have a budget,” he said.
Students of other faiths expressed their support for MSU at the event.
Lauren Tapper ’27, who is Jewish and serves on SPU’s leadership team, said that coming to Stanford “was the first time that I was able to explore my identity outside of my family…I think that religious clubs are hugely important to individual students as they discover who they are, especially religious organizations.”
Tapper added that interactions with those from other religious backgrounds encouraged her to vote in support of MSU’s funding request.
“I have been exposed to a lot of students of different faiths, and what we really connect over is how important our religion has been to us in becoming who we are today,” she said. “Every other student who is discovering their religion should have the funding and the opportunity.”
Albezreh said that dialogue was necessary to bridge divides on campus. “The solution is to actively open up our community and abolish some of the stereotypes they may have held before,” he said.