When Raha Murtuza (SFS ’28) first read the Georgetown University College Republicans’ (GUCR) now-deleted post on X, she wasn’t surprised.
The post—“Let’s Be Honest: Muslims have no place in American society. Their religion is incompatible with our Christian Nation”—just felt like more of the same Islamophobic rhetoric she had heard on the national stage for years. But as she sat with it, her feelings changed. As a Muslim student, she realized that the comments landed differently when coming from peers on her own campus.
“My feelings were hurt by the Georgetown Republicans because they clearly did not want Muslim students to be on a campus or part of their society,” Murtuza said. “Or, if they did want them to be part of their society, they wanted to erase Muslim identity. It sort of sucks to think that there’s people that you go to school with that don’t want you there.”
The comment was included as a repost by GUCR of a video posted by @libsoftiktok, an alt-right social media account, to their X. The original @libsoftiktok post referenced an attack on an anti-Muslim protest outside of Gracie Mansion, the residence of first Muslim mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani. Two men, inspired by ISIS, threw a homemade bomb at the protest.
That repost caused other recent posts targeting Muslims, immigrants, and the LGBTQ+ community from GUCR’s X account to begin circulating among students shortly after. The X account was previously archived by the Voice.
In the month since the post surfaced, the Voice spoke with students to reflect on the posts and their remaining impact on campus.
Murtuza, who wears a hijab, said the incident heightened existing insecurities about being visibly Muslim in a predominantly non-Muslim environment.
“I think that, no matter what, it’ll always be hard to present as Muslim and be wearing hijab in a university where most people don’t,” she said. “But I felt like all the insecurities I felt about it were always self-implicated, and I think that this was the first time I’ve felt like, ‘Oh my gosh, other people might be perceiving me in a negative way because of how I look, even if they’ve never met me.’”
Still, Murtuza said the timing of GUCR’s Islamophobic post—during Ramadan, the holiest month of the Islamic calendar—strengthened solidarity among Muslim students on campus.
Meriam Ahmad (SFS ’26), who works for the Office of Muslim Life, also said the post strengthened the sense community around her. She noted that many Hoyas outside the Muslim community rallied behind their fellow students in ways that made Muslim students feel supported.
“The pushback from the rest of the Georgetown community in the form of solidarity statements [and] personal messages sent to Muslims in the community from all walks of Georgetown, that was very heartwarming,” Ahmad said. “Especially with it being Ramadan, people were already spending time together, so it made it even easier to come together and collectively process.”
Yasin Khan (SFS ’26), who also works for the Office of Muslim Life, shared a similar view.
“It was really nice to hear all the reactions against it to emphasize that we don’t stand for such a thing,” he said.
GUCR also drew scrutiny for several other posts on their X account, including posts containing xenophobic and homophobic rhetoric.
One particular post read, “America is more than a physical place or a set of beliefs; we are a people with a common history, religion, and identity. Granting foreign aliens ‘birthright citizenship’ undermines our national character and bastardizes what it means to be an American.”
Loretta Seibert (SFS ’29), the events and education director for Hoyas for Immigrant Rights (HFIR), said the ideas expressed in the posts were false and in opposition to the U.S. Constitution.
“The idea that America is a place of shared history and shared culture is just not true,” she said. “America has always been a melting pot. The attack on birthright citizenship has been going on for a while, especially under Donald Trump, and I think it goes against our Constitution.”
She also criticized multiple posts from GUCR referring to specific Muslim Americans as “the enemy within,” a term used frequently by President Donald Trump throughout his presidency.
In a Feb. 25 post, GUCR reposted a post from @endwokeness featuring two images of Trump’s State of the Union address—one of Army Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover receiving a Medal of Honor and the other showing Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib heckling the president during his speech. The club wrote, “America vs. The Enemy Within*.”
On March 10, GUCR reposted another post from @libsoftiktok discussing Zohran Mamdani inviting activist Mahmoud Khalil to Gracie Mansion, writing, “The enemy within:.”
Seibert noted that the posts targeted outspoken members of immigrant communities.
“Immigrants are not the enemy,” she said. “Everyone has the right to express their freedom of speech in the United States, and to say that they can’t because they are Muslim immigrants is Islamophobic. It’s racist, and it’s just hateful.”
Another GUCR post read, “Marriage is the union of a man and a woman. A ‘marriage license’ does not change what God has ordained and what the natural law dictates.”
In response, GU Pride released a statement on their Instagram, writing, “GU Pride stands with all Muslim and LGBTQIA+ students and will always call out any and all forms of bigotry. Islamophobic, homophobic, and xenophobic rhetoric is unacceptable and must never be tolerated within the Georgetown community.”
The club also called for students to submit a bias report against GUCR.
“It’s not an isolated incident,” a GU Pride representative, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from conservative students, told the Voice. “I think that’s the most important thing. It represents a larger pattern of dehumanization and hateful rhetoric that [GUCR] has been promoting.”
The GU Pride representative emphasized the importance of finding moments of happiness.
“With all that’s going on in the world with this administration attacking LGBTQ rights and the type of rhetoric that’s being spewed on campus, I think the only thing that I personally am trying to do is just look for moments of joy and community,” the representative said.
In a March 11 statement posted to Instagram, the Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) condemned the posts and demanded further action: “The University has released a public statement condemning this hateful rhetoric. We now call upon them to review GUCR’s Access to Benefits and apply their policies accordingly.”
In a previous comment to the Voice, GUCR said that the post was deleted because it failed to communicate their position correctly: “We affirm the First Amendment rights of all Americans and we are called to love everyone. Our properly articulated position is that Sharia Law is incompatible with Western Civilization and American society as it seeks to oppress women and persecute religious minorities. This wasn’t expressed in the original tweet which is why it was promptly deleted”
While GUCR originally said that they deleted their tweet because it didn’t properly express their position, a later statement by the club posted to their Instagram story claimed that the club’s executive board was unaware of the post and that it was “inconsistent with the values of [their] organization.”
“We reaffirm our commitment to Georgetown University’s values,” GUCR wrote.
GUCR did not respond to a request from the Voice for additional comment.
University administrators—Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer Rosemary Kilkenny, Director of Campus Ministry Fr. Gregory Schenden, S.J, and Vice President for Student Affairs Eleanor J.B. Daugherty—condemned one of the group’s posts as Islamophobic in a campuswide email.
“Georgetown is proud of the religious diversity of our community and strongly condemns Islamophobia and hatred of any kind,” the email wrote. “All students and student groups with access to benefits are required to follow University policies, including policies expressly prohibiting harassment, discrimination, intimidation and threats of harm. Individuals and groups can be sanctioned for violations of University policies.”
The university has not responded to the Voice’s request for comment on whether they will sanction GUCR for their tweets.
Following the post, many students called for GUCR to face repercussions for their hate speech, arguing that they deserve to have their club benefits revoked.
According to the university’s Access to Benefits guidelines, a student group is considered ineligible for benefits if, in mission or in practice, it “fosters hatred or intolerance of others.” These benefits include the ability to reserve campus spaces, access to university communication services, and funding from student activity fees, tuition, and other forms of university revenue.
“I think that the university needs to publicly sanction them, if not completely revoke their status as a club,” Seibert said. “I think they need to lose privileges. I think they need to lose funding. I think, if the university wants to show that they truly condemn that statement, they need to do this publicly and harshly.”
For Murtuza, the posts were ultimately the result of a misunderstanding of Muslim identity.
“I don’t think people on this campus have a good understanding of the Muslim community or what Islam is,” she said. “I think that what leads to tweets like these is just a lack of education.”
Khan felt similarly, describing the post as showing “ignorance” and inviting GUCR members to come learn more about the Muslim community firsthand.
“I invite them to come to our masjid—it’s on campus, VCE—and come check it out,” he said. “We have Jum’ah every Friday at 1 p.m … I would welcome them to come learn more about what Islam is really about rather than tweeting hate online.”
Imani Liburd contributed reporting
Editor’s Note: Meriam Ahmad and Raha Murtuza have previously contributed to the Voice
