Rights group monitoring reports of attacks on U.S. minorities since Trump win

By Jon Herskovitz (Reuters) - A U.S. Muslim civil rights group said on Thursday it was monitoring reports of several incidents targeting Muslims in the United States since Republican Donald Trump's victory on Tuesday and called on the president-elect to denounce the attacks. The reports included an assault on a woman in an Islamic head scarf, as well as racist graffiti and bullying of immigrant children, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and other civil rights groups. “It’s the inevitable result of the mainstreaming of Islamophobia we’ve seen in recent months with the presidential campaign,” CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said in a phone interview. "Unfortunately, it really is up to Donald Trump to repudiate this kind of bigotry.” Trump's campaign could not be reached for comment. During the campaign, Trump called for banning Muslims from entering the country for security reasons. The wealthy businessman, who won his White House bid with strong support from white voters, has made calls for unity since the election. Hooper said the president-elect's supporters appeared to be getting a different message. A female student in a hijab at San Diego State University was assaulted and robbed on Wednesday, the university said. The assailants were reported to have made comments to the victim in support of Trump and hurled anti-Muslim insults at her, the school said in a statement, adding the case was being investigated as a hate crime. The reports came as demonstrators protested Trump's victory in cities across the country, blasting his campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and women. FABRICATED STORY Police in Louisiana said a woman made up a story about being assaulted near the University of Louisiana Lafayette campus and having her hijab removed by two men, including one who was wearing a Trump hat. The Lafayette Police Department said in a statement it was no longer investigating the incident. Many people took to social media to describe threats and insults against minorities they said were made by apparent Trump supporters. Spray-painted messages such as "Black Lives Don't Matter and Neither Does Your Votes" on a wall in North Carolina and a swastika and "Make America White Again" on a baseball dugout in New York went viral. Civil rights leaders said at a news conference in Washington on Thursday they were hearing of an increase in bullying incidents against children from racial and religious minority groups. “That is the reality of what Trump has created," said Christina Jimenez, executive director of United We Dream, an immigrant advocacy organization. Mark Potok, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center civil rights advocacy group, said he had not seen such a rash of hate crimes in the United States since Barack Obama was elected America's first black president in 2008. A similar wave also occurred when Britain voted in June to leave the European Union, Potok said. "I don't really expect it to go on for four years," he said. "In the case of Brexit, it calmed down after a couple of weeks." Trump supporters said they, too, were being targeted by ugly rhetoric and worse. A Palm Bay, Florida, high school student carrying a Trump campaign sign was punched in the face by another student during gym class, local media reported. Two signs congratulating Trump and thanking volunteers outside North Carolina's Republican Party headquarters in Raleigh were vandalized overnight, party leaders said on Twitter. (Reporting and writing by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Additional reporting by Emily Flitter and Joseph Ax in New York, Julia Harte in Washington, Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Ben Klayman in Detroit and Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla.; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney)