This teacher is losing his ability to teach and make a living, due to the sensitivities of Muslims and the touchy subject of Islam. I know first-hand the feeling of disappointment he is going through, and can say it is very angering to see your first amendment rights being pulled out from under you by those you thought were your friends and supporters.
We support you, Professor Paul Derengowski and pray for justice in these dark times for free speech.
From Jihad Watch December 10 by Robert Spencer
Muslim students threaten, force resignation of prof who quoted from Islamic texts
Paul Derengowski was, until recently, a professor at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas. He tells the story in an email to Jihad Watch:
My name is Paul Derengowski, and I was hired by Tarrant County College in 2008 to teach Great World Religions, Bible History I & II, and Introduction to Philosophy.
On November 8, 2011, I gave the second of a two-part lecture on Islam, as I've been doing Spring, Fall, and sometimes twice in the Summer, dealing with Islamic history and doctrine, and more particularly Muhammad's move to Medina. A question had been raised by two Muslim students in the previous the lecture concerning the sources I used to discuss the raid at Nakhlah. At the start of the second lecture I provided my sources (The Life of Muhammad by Haykal and the Qur'an), which included reading Sura 2:216-217. That is when all hell broke loose.
Both Muslim students, for an hour, berated me, my sources, and my credentials. When other students in the class attempted to ask questions or make comments, then the Muslim students would interrupt them as well. Finally, toward the end of the class period, a student made a comment on how "scary" the person of Muhammad seemed to be. That's when the male Muslim blurted out "you ought to be scared," and then bolted for the door in a fit of outrage. I subsequently filed a campus police report on him out of concern for the safety of students and myself. The female followed suit as well, claiming later in a libelous email she passed around unbeknownst to me—that is, until one of the students forwarded the diatribe to me later—that she was not going to sit there and listen to me slander her religion, even though all I did was quote from Islamic sources.
It was the libelous email that really started the wheels in motion leading up to my resignation. The female Muslim student not only stealthily sent around the email to all the rest of the students in the class to (1) defame me behind my back, but also to (2) try and gather support for her reckless behavior. She ended up with zero support from anyone. In it she made the same baseless claims of slandering Islam, but included some selective quotes from a couple of Mormon bloggers who had done what she was doing, and that is malign me in a malicious way, as well as a portion of blog I had written in 2009 on the Abdulmuttalab idiot who tried to blow up the plane over Detroit.
Both Muslim students then turned to TCC administration to make their specious complaints. The sad thing is, as if what these students did was not sad enough, is that the administration kowtowed to them, called me in and questioned everything from my syllabus (which was already approved and essentially the same ever since 2008) to my motives for teaching, to the banner on my website dealing with Islam. I was informed that I was to teach "neutral" in my views on religion, my opinions and insights were not welcome, that the remainder of my syllabus would be nixed, and that I was to strictly abide by the department approved book (which in reality, I was the one who even selected it for the course). None of the other students were called in and questioned as to what happened. After a veiled threat concerning my employment for failure to abide by the neutrality mandate, I subsequently resigned.
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