SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – When Salma talks about the frustration she experiences at school, her voice cracks. She says it is anger. Her parents believe it is the emotional trauma of bullying. The 16-year-old high school junior has faced numerous verbal and physical assaults in the past few years, all because she is Muslim, her mother Dina admits.

“It is time for a change in how our young people, especially our daughters, are treated,” said Dina, an Egyptian-American who described herself as a housewife. “I think what is happening is a real problem and many of our girls in our community are facing traumas daily because nobody does anything.”

According to a December study conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), approximately 50 percent of all Muslim school kids in California face bullying based on their faith.

Since entering high school in the San Francisco Bay Area two years ago, Salma and her friends have reportedly faced a mounting number of bullying incidents. Salma revealed that when she thought of going out for the volleyball team, a couple of the other girls verbally assaulted her, forcing her to let go of the idea at the time.

“The other girls, on the first day of tryouts, kept asking me which bomb I would use to blow up the building, if I was a 'Bin Laden whore' and 'do all Muslim women like to be beat up by men.’ It was horrible and I couldn’t take it, so I just play on a team outside of school with mostly Muslim girls,” Salma said.

For her friend, Heba, who is 17-years-old and veiled, the situation has even at times turned physically violent. Heba told Occupy.com that twice last year, boys at her school ripped off her hijab – the traditional Islamic headscarf worn by many Muslim women the world over – and spit on her, calling her a “terrorist.”

“This is what we are forced to put up with on a daily basis at school and the frustrating thing is that there is little being done to help us,“ she said.

“I think people don’t care because we are Muslim and the media makes people believe we are evil.”

Ten percent of the kids surveyed reported physical bullying like slapping, kicking or punching. Girls, in particular, were subject to bullying for wearing their hijab.

At least 17 percent of girls said they had experienced "offensive touching or pulling" of their hijab – and 4 percent reported experiencing this often.

"I came to school one day with a bandana, not a headscarf, and a bunch of students started calling me a 'Bin Laden lover' and 'terrorist'," said Amina, a 16-year-old student here of Indonesian background.

"I am not a very devout Muslim, but my name and the friends I hang around are mostly Muslim, so it was pretty hard to hear those things against me just because of my religion."

The report, "Growing in Faith: California Muslim Youth Experiences with Bullying, Harassment and Religious Accommodation in Schools," reveals that nearly half of Muslim students say they have been subjected to some form of bias-based bullying. The findings are based on a statewide survey of almost 500 Muslim students, ages 11 to 18.They were asked questions about their relationships with peers and teachers, as well as their comfort levels participating in discussions about Islam and Muslims.

The report found that approximately one in five young women reported being bullied because they wore an Islamic headscarf to school. Additionally, one in five youth reported they were unsure of participating in classroom discussions in which Islam or Muslims are discussed and were unsure whether teachers respected their religion.

More than one-third of bullying victims surveyed indicated that reporting harassment incidents to school administrators was not helpful.

One San Francisco area school administrator, who asked not to be named because it is unauthorized to speak to media, said teachers and others are now more aware than they were about bullying of Muslim students – and that education and action on the issue is beginning.

“I think we all didn’t really understand what was happening and now we are getting a better picture of it all, and the students are more willing to talk about what is happening,” the official said. “Right now, we have to do a better job of educating our teachers on how to notice and understand what bullying is on a daily basis.”

According to CAIR, the idea that students can be called terrorists or other vicious names, and even be subjected to physical attacks over their faith, shows that the state, and the country, have a long way to go before Muslim students – and girls especially – are given the same opportunities as other students.

"Being called 'terrorist' or 'Bin laden' is still a reality for many American Muslim students," said CAIR Los Angeles Civil Rights Manager Fatima Dadabhoy. "Throughout the course of this study, we were alarmed to find that many Muslim students didn't even deem this as a form of bullying. Through this report, we hope to show that a decision to dismiss mistreatment as a natural consequence of being Muslim in America, or simply part of growing up, is unacceptable and normalizes a toxic school environment."

For girls like Salma, Heba and others, the struggle to find a place in their school, to study and have fun like others without fear of being attacked for their Islamic faith, is still a difficult one.

“I know that a lot of the kids are poking fun at us and trying to be funny, but it hurts and makes a lot of us not want to participate in anything,” said Salma.

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