Investigating Islamist Extremism

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Credit Department of Homeland Security

Department of Homeland Security

Congressional hearings to investigate the “radicalization of Muslims in America” begin today on Capitol Hill. The hearings, called by New York Rep. Peter King, who is the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, are being criticized as racist for singling out the Muslim community in an exploration of homegrown terrorism.

King has dismissed research from the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, a collaborative effort between Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and RTI International, that says the number of Muslim-American terrorist cases has fallen since 2009. David Schanzer, the center’s director and an associate professor of the practice for public policy at Duke, joins host Frank Stasio to talk about his findings on Islamist extremism. Also joining the conversation are Ebrahim Moosa, an associate professor of Islamic Studies at Duke, and Duke’s Muslim Chaplain Abdullah Antepli, who will provide reactions from the Muslim-American community to the hearings.