As part of the Social Justice Center’s monthly Java & Justice event, Thursday’s discussion focused on Islamophobia, freedom of speech and problematic media portrayals in recent weeks.

The topics were chosen in response to the recent Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, the NAACP bombing in Colorado and the ongoing violence in Nigeria, along with social media efforts such as the “Je suis Charlie” movement in Paris and Australia’s “I’ll Ride With You” hashtag campaign to promote Muslim acceptance.

Nearly 30 students attended the discussion, which began with an introduction by SJC Programming Chair and sophomore Nina Stoller. According to Stoller, one of the central goals of this discussion in particular was to offer greater diversity in opinion.

“It’s important to challenge ourselves to hear opinions that are new or unpopular,” Stoller said. “Always when these discussions happen, it kind of is slow to build and I really felt like participation increased with time. I think people became more comfortable with expressing unpopular opinions.”

Sophomore and External Communication Chair Nooreen Moosa helped co-facilitate the discussion. Despite the small percentage of Muslim students on campus, Moosa, who is a Muslim, was happy with the turnout.

“I’m really glad there were a lot of Muslim students here to represent their voices and their opinions,” Moosa said. “With the very low number of Muslims on campus, it’s important to engage in these types of conversations, and I’m really glad that this happened.”

“I’m also really glad that that point about how we don’t have to take ownership for these events came up because I feel like there is this social pressure [for Muslims] to apologize, this social pressure to take ownership when the vast majority of Muslims have nothing to do with it and don’t stand for these actions at all,” Moosa added.

Stoller was most excited about the end of the conversation, when the discussion turned away from the problems themselves and toward possible solutions.

“I was really happy with the action steps part of it,” Stoller said. “Sometimes we have discussions and people get really passionate about ‘what do I do next?’”

One method proposed to prevent bias toward Muslims on campus was to encourage conversation with others who have differing opinions or who are not invested in the topic.

“Bring a friend that disagrees with you and also be a listener—be willing to hear some things that make you uncomfortable—education in the form of listening,” Stoller said. “This is a larger issue. People are hesitant to get invested in an issue when they don’t see it around them, and that’s honestly a reflection of a relatively homogenous campus.”

Liam Fitzgerald, a freshman attendee, noted that although the conversation was overall a positive experience, he wasn’t sure if it accomplished everything it had intended.

“So it started off really slow and it didn’t really get moving, and I think that’s just the nature of the topic and that it doesn’t apply to a lot of us, which is a problem that, you know, not many people here are Muslim,” Fitzgerald said. “ I still don’t know if it really got what we were thinking done.”

Java & Justice, hosted by the Social Justice Center every third Thursday of the month, aims to bring to the forefront of conversation issues that Washington University students care about.

“I think what the SJC does well is it’s flexible in its pursuits,” Stoller said. “We’re willing to talk about it if people want to keep talking about it.”