A Muslim college student in California ended up getting kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight and questioned by the FBI after he called his uncle on the phone and spoke to him in Arabic.

The student, Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, came to the US as an Iraqi refugee in 2010, according to the New York Times. The night before he got on the April 6 flight, he'd attended a dinner with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Makhzoomi told CNN, and he called his uncle in Baghdad to tell him about the experience.

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Makhzoomi is asking for a public apology from Southwest. But if history is any guide, he probably won't get one. Reports of passengers reporting other passengers who are speaking Arabic or wearing headscarves have been getting more attention the past few months — part of a growing wave of Islamophobia in the US that encompasses both violence and inconvenience:

In every case, the airline maintains that race and religion don't play a role. "Our crew made the decision to investigate a report of potentially threatening comments overheard onboard our aircraft," Southwest said in a statement to CNN. "A group of our employees including the flight crew made the decision to review the situation."

So Makhzoomi's quest for a public apology is likely to remain unfulfilled: When other passengers report "suspicious activity" — even if it's just a conversation in another language — airlines are still taking their word for it.