Editor’s note: This story was updated Friday, May 9, to include a statement from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in response to this publication.
The Muslim Student Association (MSA) WKU chapter has requested an easily accessible campus prayer space since its founding in 2019.
Six years later, however, they have yet to receive such space.
Multiple MSA members said they don’t need anything large. They said they would prefer a carpeted room with space to store Qurans and hijabs.
“We don’t need a cathedral, but we need just a tiny space,” Mansour said.
Arjana said a prayer room needs to meet two main requirements.
“A Muslim prayer space is some place where people have not walked with dirty shoes,” said Religious Studies associate professor and MSA facility sponsor Sophia Arjana. “And ideally, they need a space where there’s enough room for all the people in the Muslim Community to pray.”
Jihad Mansour, a senior pre-med student and the MSA Graduate Rep, said Muslims have five mandatory daily prayers.
Prayer times are based on the sun’s position: one before sunrise, one at sunrise, two after noon, one in the evening and one at night. The two afternoon prayers, occurring around 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., can pose challenges for students who are often on campus attending classes.
The MSA currently meets in Cherry Hall 227A for their Friday congregational prayer, or Jum’ah. Arjana helped acquire the space from the History Club.
MSA students can only use the room on Fridays, leaving them without a space to pray during the rest of the week.
Audra Jennings, chair of the history department, confirmed that the MSA will continue to have a space in Grise Hall once Cherry Hall closes for renovations.
MSA members recalled a meeting in 2019 with Dean of Students Martha Sales to try to allocate a room in DSU.
During this meeting, MSA members said they felt discriminated against. According to them, Sales said, “I’m Christian, I can pray wherever I want.”
Sales agreed to an interview after seven emails from the Herald, in which she denied discriminating against Muslim students.
“I never compared religions,” Sales said.
MSA members said that after explaining to Sales that they could not alter their prayer, she guided them to a stairwell and told them to pray under it. MSA members said students left the meeting crying and felt “completely alone.”
Sales said she showed the MSA a staircase to pray under. She said she found the location appropriate based on the information they gave her and didn’t recall the suggestion upsetting any students.
“Maybe I misstepped,” Sales said. “If I did, I would love to have the opportunity to apologize.”
Sales said there was ultimately nothing she could do about allocating the MSA a space aside from the already existing interfaith Chandler Memorial Chapel.
“For all of our student religious organizations, the dedicated space is the chapel,” Sales said. “I worked on their behalf with university officials to see if we could have other additional spaces, they’re just not available.”
Rachel Goodman, director of Campus & Community Events, said her office informed the MSA that they can use the Chandler Memorial Chapel without reservation if it is not already in use.
Founder of the MSA’s WKU chapter, Dania Khan, said the MSA doesn’t go to the Chandler Memorial Chapel anymore because of issues with reserving the space. She explained that, years ago, a group of students from a different campus religious organization found out she and a friend would be at the chapel to pray and reserved the chapel before she could arrive.
The students told Khan and her friend they would be there for over three hours, so Khan found a temporary room in Van Meter Hall. After only one hour, Khan returned to the chapel to find it empty.
Khan said that before she left the chapel to find a new place to pray, the students attempted to convert her and her friend.
“They took me and her, and they interrogated us and told us Islam is wrong,” Khan said.
Imamulhaq Brula, a medical student at the University of Kentucky’s Bowling Green campus, is a past MSA treasurer and president and is still involved in its operations.
Brula said Sales told him in a meeting that WKU is not obligated to provide a prayer space for Muslim students.
“She (Martha Sales) was quite direct, that WKU is not required to make any religious accommodations outside of free speech,” Brula said.
Brula said he felt “hurt” that WKU would not accommodate students of all religions.
Brula also met with Toni Dye, director of Global Learning Advising & Student Services. Dye told the Herald the space requested by the MSA is unavailable.
According to multiple MSA members, departmental administrators have said the MSA would have to buy or rent a prayer room. When the MSA agreed to fundraise, they said WKU failed to make anything substantial happen.
“When we proposed we can get funding, it still never went anywhere because they were just dragging their feet,” Mansour said.
Brula said another funding issue is limited resources. He said many Muslim students are at WKU as refugees or international students and don’t have the money to spend on a prayer space.
“These people are not gonna raise thousands of dollars to give themselves a space because they just can’t afford it,” Brula said.
He also said WKU refused to give a specific cost of renting or buying a prayer space.
Because of funding issues, Brula reached out to Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement.
When asked about their correspondence with the MSA, Summer Bacon, the senior director of donor engagement, wrote, “I explained that our office is not responsible for allocating campus facilities, and I have not heard from them since.”
Brula provided the Herald with what he stated was his last contact with Bacon.
“I wanted to reach out and let you know we are working with the Provost on your request as he oversees campus space,” Bacon wrote to Brula. “When we hear back from him and have more information to pass along, I will let you know.”
When asked about the discrepancy, Bacon explained she forwarded her emails with the MSA to her supervisor, Amanda Trabue, vice president of Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement.
Trabue told the Herald she forwarded information to Provost Bud Fischer, who told her at a later date that all MSA-related inquiries should be sent to Molly Kerby, Assistant Provost for Institutional Effectiveness & Engagement.
Kerby told the Herald that WKU was prohibited from creating a prayer space because of the First Amendment; however, multiple public universities across the state have established areas for religious expression.
In 2017, the University of Kentucky reported that a temporary multifaith prayer location was established in McVey Hall before a permanent room was allocated in the Gatton Student Center, where it currently remains.
The University of Louisville website lists four locations for prayer and meditation.
Northern Kentucky University’s MSA chapter has two carpeted prayer rooms highlighted on their Instagram.
Multiple MSA members said faculty habitually referred them to different departments without helping the situation.
“You go to one person and they’re super unenthusiastic about it, so what do they do?” Mansour said. “They tell you, ‘Oh, reach out to this person,’ and that person tells you reach out to this person, and you’re just like going in this big giant circle.”
He said the cycle of continuously being referred to different departments has disheartened Muslim students.
“A lot of people just feel very discouraged and very deterred from being able to practice those five daily prayers,” Mansour said.
Khan said the reaction by WKU has solidified her fear as a Muslim in America. Her fear keeps her from openly wearing a hijab in public.
“I’m too scared to wear a hijab in America, especially at Western,” Khan said.
Following publication, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), “the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization,” released a statement supporting MSA members’ request for a prayer space.
“‘Every student deserves a place to practice their faith,’ said CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison. ‘We urge the WKU administration to ensure that Muslims on campus receive the same rights accorded to students of other faiths and receive a suitable place to pray,'” the press release states.
