US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr faced heavy criticism on Wednesday following a campaign speech in Michigan. He asserted that Arab populations had never produced major scientific or literary achievements.
Kennedy spoke on Monday night in Grand Rapids at a rally supporting Republican US Senate candidate Mike Rogers. Rogers is currently trailing his Democratic midterms opponent Abdul El-Sayed, who is a Muslim.
During the event, Kennedy claimed that a population of five hundred million Arabs produced no science and failed to win prestigious international honours such as the Nobel Prize, the Fields Medal, and the Wolf Prize.
A fact-check published on Tuesday by the Associated Press showed that Arab individuals have won, or been short-listed, for all of those awards in recent years.
Civil rights groups and political figures condemned the remarks. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called the statements a textbook display of unvarnished racism and bigotry. The healthcare advocacy organisation Protect Our Care described the speech as a wildly racist tirade.
Democratic US representative Hillary Scholten issued a statement on Tuesday criticising the health secretary. She said that as head of health and human services, Kennedy had a responsibility to serve all Americans rather than demean entire communities with demonstrably false claims.
Scholten noted that Arab Americans serve as neighbours, colleagues, healthcare professionals, scientists, educators, and public servants. She pointed out that Kennedy lacked both a medical degree and a Nobel peace prize, stating his rhetoric had undermined public confidence in health science.
Kennedy made the remarks while launching an attack on the Muslim Brotherhood, a global Islamic group designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States government. He claimed the rise of the group created stagnant societies, contrasting this with a historical golden age when Islamic lands were centres of art, science, and engineering.
Other senior figures in the administration have targeted El-Sayed during the campaign. President Donald Trump addressed a rally in Port Huron on Sunday and called the Democratic candidate a jihadist on the side of the terrorists.
Vice-president JD Vance escalated the attacks during an event in Howell on Tuesday. Vance attempted to connect El-Sayed’s politics to violent protests in Paris, claiming the candidate would lead rioters if disturbances occurred in New York or Detroit.
Rogers has also raised questions regarding El-Sayed and the Muslim Brotherhood. This occurred despite scrutiny over Rogers’ own record, including a 2012 statement as House intelligence committee chair suggesting the US should hold talks with the movement after Mohamed Morsi won Egypt’s election.
El-Sayed has repeatedly denied any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, explicitly disavowing the group during a town hall event in Michigan last week. Democratic US senator Chris Murphy, who was campaigning in Michigan last week, condemned Kennedy’s remarks and warned of a coordinated campaign to delegitimise Muslim Americans as human beings.
