Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing criticism after saying that Arabs “don’t produce science” and don’t win major prizes.
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vile anti-Arab rant is a textbook display of unvarnished racism and bigotry,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a statement on Oct. 27.
Kennedy, speaking during a campaign rally on Monday in Michigan alongside state GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers, told the crowd that he knew how dangerous the Muslim Brotherhood organization is and that the group, which includes chapters designated by U.S. officials as foreign terrorist organizations, launched a new ideology “that departed from traditional Islam.”
He said that the group’s worst victims have been people living in countries the Muslim Brotherhood controls.
“The Muslim religion produced the golden age, which lasted almost a thousand years, where Islamic lands were the center, the foundation for art and literature and science and engineering,” Kennedy said.
He added later that now, due to the new ideology, “there’s 500 million Arabs in the world and yet they don’t produce science, they don’t win the Nobel Prize, they don’t win the Fields Prize, they don’t win the Wolf Prize, they don’t produce literature.”
People with Arab heritage have won all three prizes, including Ahmed Zewail, an Egyptian native who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1999.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not return a request for comment from Kennedy.
Rogers has spoken out against the Muslim Brotherhood and said his opponent, the Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, has taken money from Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters.
El-Sayed has said he has never been a Muslim Brotherhood member and told voters during a town hall that he disavowed it.
Kennedy’s remarks should result in his termination, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said.
Protect Our Care, another organization that has regularly criticized Kennedy, said his remarks were bigoted.
Several lawmakers also spoke out against Kennedy.
“RFK Jr.’s racist remarks about Arab people are disgraceful and have no place in public service,” Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.) said in a statement.
“As Secretary of Health and Human Services, he has a responsibility to serve all Americans, not use his position to demean entire communities with bigoted and demonstrably false claims.”
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