'I'm Not One To Give Up': Dublin School Board Candidate Responds To Islamophobic Onslaught

DUBLIN, CA — Seema Badar, a candidate running to unseat Dan Cherrier in Area 5 on the Dublin Unified School Board of Trustees, is responding this week to an onslaught of Islamophobic comments on Facebook about her candidacy.

The uproar stems from a social media post featuring a Patch article about Badar. The Patch article drew no comments, but the Facebook version attracted 256 comments, including numerous attacks on Badar’s Muslim identity.

“I didn't realize there was so much hate,” Badar said in an interview with Patch. “They're putting their thoughts there and their negative energy, their racism, Islamophobia, into these comments. The rhetoric is just really hateful. I wouldn't want this on anyone. I don't want anyone to feel so unwelcome in their own town, where they live, pay taxes, and give back. I wouldn't want anyone to feel that way.”

Most of the negative comments focused on her religion rather than her past job performance or credentials.

“Don’t elect Muslims,” one woman wrote. “They will try to change to their ways.”

“Here comes Sharia law and radical Islamic teaching,” another man added.

“Dearborn MI 2.0. No thanks. This is where it starts,” wrote one Facebook user, referencing a majority-Muslim Detroit suburb that has become a right-wing talking point.

And another account posted a graphic of a white man in Revolutionary War attire kicking a dark-skinned man in traditional Middle Eastern clothing, against the backdrop of an American flag, next to the words, “The only solution.”

One person tagged Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"Ship them back," wrote another man.

Patch reached out to the commenters about their posts, but none responded. Patch has not independently verified the identities behind the accounts.

Some of the commenters were from out of state, though many whose profiles identified where they lived came from Dublin or nearby communities like Pleasanton, Danville, Livermore, and Castro Valley.

This is Badar’s fourth election in the five years she has lived in Dublin. Earlier this year, she ran in a primary for a seat on the board of the Zone 7 Water Agency. In earlier elections, she ran for a seat on the Dublin San Ramon Services District. She said that while she has not previously experienced an online onslaught the way she did in this election, she experiences a “general feeling of being unwelcome.”

Badar, who wears a hijab head covering, said that someone at the Dublin Farmers’ Market told her to “go back to your country,” a phrase she says she’s heard more than once.

“People just look through you like you don’t exist. That kind of stuff just breeds ignorance,” she said.

She also noted that she has had many positive experiences with the community, particularly when people speak to her about her campaigns.

“For people who got to know me, I did garner a lot of support through the community. Whoever I was able to talk to and get to know, they realized that this person has a heart of giving back and it's important to support them,” she said.

In the Tri-Valley, Badar received the overwhelming majority of anti-Muslim comments on Facebook versions of Patch's candidate profiles. However, two other candidates running also received comments. Kashef Qaadri, who is running for re-election to the Dublin City Council, received three negative comments, including, “Dublin = Dearborn,” and simply “Go home.”

Reena Gupta, who is running for Pleasanton City Council, received the comment “Pleasanton = Dearborn” from one man who also posted "Dublin = Dearborn" on the profiles about Seema Badar and Kashef Qaadri. Another wrote “No Middle East terrorist” on the profile of Kiran Muhammed, who is running for Dublin mayor. No other Patch candidate profiles, whether on Patch or Facebook, received negative comments based on their faith or ethnicity.

Different studies have reported a startling rise in both Islamophobia and in online harassment of political candidates. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the organization received a record 8,683 civil rights complaints nationwide in 2025, the highest annual total since it began publishing reports in 1996. Of those, 555 were classified as hate incidents.

CAIR’s California office said that it received 119 reports of hate crimes and hate incidents in 2025.

Muslim political candidates have also faced documented online harassment. Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat currently running a high-profile Senate race in Michigan, received 21,690 Islamophobic posts naming him in the seven days following his Aug. 4 primary victory, a nearly twentyfold surge, according to an analysis from the Center for the Study of Organized Hate. A Washington Post analysis found that nearly one-third of right-wing social media posts about El-Sayed mentioned Islam, Muslims, or Sharia law.

Closer to home, Rep. Aisha Wahab said she received Islamophobic emails and questions during her 2018 run for Hayward City Council. She also reported receiving threats of violence, in-person intimidation of staff, and Islamophobic slurs in 2023 when she introduced legislation prohibiting caste discrimination.

During an Oct. 7 congressional debate in Dublin, Wahab’s opponent Melissa Hernandez appeared to suggest that Wahab had personally communicated with the Taliban. Hernandez later said she had been cut off mid-sentence, and was referring to Wahab’s support for diplomatic engagement with Afghanistan’s Taliban government. Wahab called the remark a “racist dog whistle.”

“Whenever there's that moment of progress, there's always a backlash to it,” said Nadia Rahman, an advocacy consultant with CAIR for the San Francisco Bay Area. “So I think what we're experiencing now, and you're seeing it even now in the suburban area races, is the backlash to that moment, coupled with the ascendancy of a Muslim man becoming the mayor of the largest city in the country. And now the first Muslim man potentially becoming the first U.S. senator of Muslim origin. When there are those moments of progression for certain groups of people, too—in this case, Muslims—the backlash comes, too.”

One in three Muslim-American candidates running in the 2018 midterms and participating in a Social Science Research Council survey reported high or very high levels of Islamophobia. Over 40 percent of female Muslim candidates reported receiving verbal threats, and about 20 percent of female candidates reported physical threats. Thirty-five percent reported deleting Islamophobic Facebook comments.

In January 2025, Meta introduced a number of changes to its moderation policies, including loosening restrictions of speech about protected groups, raising the threshold for automated removals, and ending its U.S. third-party fact-checking program,

According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, hateful speech on Meta platforms directed at politicians more than tripled since then. Before the changes, politicians received 24,000 abusive comments on Meta platforms, according to the CCDH study. Six months later, it reported 78,000. According to an analysis from WIRED, Meta removed approximately 29 percent fewer items for hateful conduct across Facebook and Instagram in the first quarter of 2025 compared with the previous quarter. A Meta spokesperson told WIRED that the company’s own reports showed no increase in the prevalence of hateful conduct on its platforms throughout 2025.

Both Badar and Rahman said that they have reported comments to Meta, but were told that the comments did not meet its threshold for deletion.

“My family has a history of serving the community—that's what we do. We give back. We serve, and that’s what my intent was to run for the school board,” Badar said. “When you can see that this is how you’re treated when you step up, it’s just very sad.”

At the same time, when asked if she would run again given all the harassment, Badar said she is undeterred. “I'm not one to give up. I feel like I have a heart for service...I know I have something to give out there, and eventually I think people will realize it.”