UPDATE: 

UCR HAS FEWER OPTIONS THAN IT DID TWO YEARS AGO

Since this petition was initially circulated, UC Riverside has backslid in terms of its Halal food options. Chronic Tacos no longer serves Halal-certified meat and Muslim students are struggling to find food options on campus. 

Vegetarian options on campus are limited with the closure of MOD Pizza and are often more costly. 

Muslim students are starting to feel isolated as they have to prepare food at home or resort to going off-campus to eat, which causes a loss in revenue for the university.

We are also still asking for restaurants to follow better protocols to ensure there is no contamination of vegetarian food by meat as well. 

Student leadership in the Middle Eastern and Muslim community on campus is working to pass a resolution and work with campus dining to resolve this issue. 

PLEASE sign this petition to show support for this cause and provide more halal food options on campus. This is a diverse university, our food options should reflect that!

ORIGINAL POST:

UC Riverside is an extremely diverse university, which calls for unique resources in order to ensure every student's needs are met. Our campus does not offer enough Halal Meat options to our Muslim population. Halal Meat is meat that is killed in a way that adheres to Islamic law. The lack of Halal meat options on campus has severely limited the food options available to Muslim students, and many of them have had to resort to skipping meals or driving off campus for lunch. 

Chronic Tacos currently serves Halal chicken, but many of the employees often claim they do not carry it or react in a negative way when asked to prepare the chicken. There are often long wait times, reaching up to 30-minute wait after you order your food for the chicken to be ready, which cannot accommodate our student's busy class schedules. 

Regarding other restaurants on campus, we ask that they are more transparent about whether food is actually 100% vegetarian. If the servers are using the same gloves and utensils to handle vegetables as they are the meat, they should explicitly mention that to customers. For example at MOD Pizza, the same knife that is used to cut meat pizzas is the same as the veggie pizzas. 

Please support us in trying to create more food options for Muslim students. Having access to permissible food is a large part of student life and is a necessity.