In the RG today, Dec 12, 2010

My local paper the Register-Guard published an editorial today about LCC and myself.  Here is the link to the RG editorial.  Below is my reply.

Enjoy.

In reply to the editorial in the RG of 12-12-10

I sit watching the Willamette River course by, the brown, turbid waters carrying away the detritus of the last year.  Will it wash away the last few days?  Probably not.

This is not what I had wanted, or expected.  I wanted to teach a class on Islam, and to do it using factual history.  Now it has bloomed into a debate about free speech, civil rights, discrimination and a host of other current and emotional issues.  How all this will play out is anyone’s guess.    

My critics say I have no right, or qualifications to teach.  How do they know?  Have they ever seen me teach a class?  No they have not, but as with any teacher, there is always a first day.  What makes them think I am not qualified to teach?  It is because of my opinions and what I think. 

My opponents play a most amazing game, and use a trick called assumptive leap of faith: the assumption is that what is taught in the class will be EXACTLY the same as my personal views.  Has anyone ever met a professor, teacher or lecturer who did not have an opinion?  Has anyone ever met a teacher with no opinion?  What a good teacher is supposed to teach in the class is facts and truths, and a great teacher never confuses opinion with truth.

No one from LCC asked to see the course material.  No one asked me to address alleged concerns about the class.  Why?  I can only speculate, and that I will not do.  The answer lies within LCC.  Someday they may tell me.

If the subject of Islam is so frightening to LCC, what does that say about open and honest dialogue at a college?  As the AAUP said in 1940, “Scholarship cannot flourish in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust.  Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate…”  It is the student who decides if the class has any merit, as they are the ones who will use or discard the information.  If you do not give students the chance to acquire all the knowledge they want, they cannot form critical thinking skills, a trait vitally important in college life.

A college is a place for open dialogue and the free exchange of ideas, is it not?  During the 60s college campuses were the bastions of free speech; any and all were welcome to speak their mind, no matter how potentially uncomfortable it might be.  Today, colleges are where your thoughts and opinions are not welcome, even in the context of free speech and free exchange.

When CAIR got involved the game changed.  An un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation/Hamas money laundering trial, who’s top executives are serving prison time for their support of Hamas and jihad, a group which the FBI now wants nothing to do with and who have succeeded in getting a tenured professor fired for speaking about Islam(http://marathonpundit.blogspot.com/2010/12/justice-denied-for-former-depaul.html),  their actions are thuggish and imperil free speech and speaking about Islam.  CAIR is a big factor in all this, yet LCC has not condemned them or their actions.  Why?

The dice have been rolled, what they come up with when they stop can only be guessed at.  It would have been much easier to hear LCC saying they stand by freedom of speech, no matter what, and that they would let the class go on, even while disagreeing with me on some aspects.  Ah, as my late father used to say, if only…

LCC seems to have abdicated its roll as a repository for the exchange of the world’s information, and instead have taken to wrapping themselves in that nice, fuzzy PC blanket.  

A little piece of free speech has been chipped off and thrown into the murky waters.

   

The river moves on, and I wonder where it will empty out.