May 17, 2019
Americans think that Muslims are the minority most discriminated against in the United States—suffering even more discrimination than American blacks.
A new poll released last month listed nine categories of Americans and asked respondents if they believe those groups suffer from discrimination in US society. The poll found a substantial difference in views between Republicans and Democrats. In general, a third to a half more Democrats saw discrimination against racial and religious minorities than Republicans.
And the group that Republicans said was most discriminated against was Evangelical Christians. Republicans saw substantially more discrimination than Democrats against men, whites and Evangelical Christians.
The Pew Research Center has taken this poll in the past and said it found views little changed since the last poll in 2016, except that almost half again as many Americans said Jews were discriminated against today as in 2016, just before Donald Trump was elected president. Today, 64 percent of Americans say Jews face at least some discrimination – a 20-percentage-point jump from 2016; the share saying Jews face “a lot” of discrimination has nearly doubled, from 13 percent to 24 percent.
The survey by the Pew Research Center was conducted March 20-25 among 1,503 adults.
It found majorities continue to say there is a lot or some discrimination against Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, gays and lesbians, and women. Muslims, in particular, are seen as facing more discrimination than other groups in society; 82 percent say Muslims face some discrimination, with 56 percent saying Muslims encounter a lot of discrimination – highest among the nine groups included in the survey.
By party, 92 percent of Democrats said Muslims suffer discrimination, tied with the proportion saying blacks are discriminated against. Sixty-nine percent of Republicans said Muslims suffer discrimination—one percentage point less than the proportion of Republicans who say Evangelical Christians are discriminated against and one percentage more than the proportion seeing discrimination against blacks.
The poll gave the option of saying there was a lot, some, only a little or no discrimination at all against each group. Six percent of all the respondents said Muslims suffered no discrimination in the United States. That compares with 5 percent seeing no discrimination against blacks, 6 percent against Hispanics, 7 percent against gays and lesbians, 10 percent against women, 11 percent against Jews, 23 percent against Evangelical Christians, 29 percent against whites and 32 percent against men.