This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A quarter-century after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, religious bias in America has not disappeared, but the forces shaping it have changed. Rice University researchers who have examined attitudes toward Muslims and religious discrimination across more than two decades have found a complicated shift.
Overall support for restrictive policies targeting Muslims declined between 2002 and 2019, even as attitudes became increasingly divided along political, religious and demographic lines. More recent research from Rice's Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance points to another important lesson: Conflicts happening thousands of miles away can intensify religious tensions at home, particularly when they intersect with divisions already present in American society. Kerby Goff, associate director of research at the Boniuk Institute and research assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, said one explanation for the shift lies in how people respond to a perceived external threat.
"Social science generally shows that when a group perceives a threat from outside, that perception produces a cohesive defensive response," Goff said. "Over time, that cohesiveness dissipates. In the decades following 9/11, attitudes toward Muslims came to be shaped more by internal religious, political and demographic divisions in the U.S." Boniuk Institute director and the Herbert S.
Autrey Chair in Social Sciences Elaine Howard Ecklund and colleagues compared nationally representative surveys conducted in 2002 and 2019 to examine how Americans' attitudes toward policies targeting Muslims changed over time. In 2002, 38% of Americans surveyed favored making it harder for Muslims to settle in the U.S. By 2019, that figure had fallen to 17%.
But researchers found another shift taking place at the same time. Differences in attitudes by political affiliation, religion and age became more pronounced. Political affiliation, in particular, emerged as a significant dividing line by 2019.
The institute's more recent research shows why these questions remain relevant 25 years after 9/11. A 2024 Boniuk Institute survey examined religious bias and hostility following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel and the war in Gaza. Nearly a quarter of Jewish respondents (23%) and 16% of Muslim respondents reported experiencing an increase in religious bias or hostility since Oct. 7, 2023.
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