I received one of those "chain" emails today. Normally I delete them, or else quickly skim through them, and then delete them. Never email me one of those "send this to twenty people or you'll die a horrible death!" emails, or you yourself might be the one to die a horrible death.
But back to the email. I recently completed a graduate course on Legal and Ethical Issues in Higher Education, and this email really spoke to me, and brought up all sorts of thoughts.
The email went a little something like this (and bare with the length of this bologna, I feel it warrants some thought):
I am SOOOOO GLAD that the university is standing with the Professor. If Universities keep their heads on and don't let the Muslims bully them we just might start to make headway in this country. As long as we give in to them we are doomed!!!
'Bout Time Someone Stood Up To These Idiots!!
GO, MICHIGAN STATE !
Very interesting -- the University is standing by their professor and not bowing down to special interest groups!
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/wichman.asp
Professor Wichman E-mail Claim: A Michigan professor sent an e-mail telling Muslim students to leave the country.
Status: True.
The story begins at Michigan State University with a mechanical engineering professor named Indred Wichman. Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student's Association. The e-mail was in response to the students' protest of the Danish cartoons that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. The group had complained the cartoons were 'hate speech.'
Enter Professor Wichman.
In his e-mail, he said the following:
Dear Muslim Association, As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intend to protest your protest. I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey), burnings of Christian churches, the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavian girls and women (called 'whores' in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris France. This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many of my colleagues. I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Muslims to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile 'protests.' If you do not like the values of the West - see the First Amendment - you are free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option. Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans.
Cordially, I. S. Wichman Professor of Mechanical Engineering
As you can imagine, The Muslim group at the university didn't like this too well. They're demanding that Wichman be reprimanded, that the university impose mandatory diversity training for faculty, And mandate a seminar on hate and discrimination for all freshmen. Now, the local chapter of CAIR has jumped into the fray. CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, apparently doesn't believe that the good professor Had the right to express his opinion.
For its part, the university is standing its ground in support of Professor Wichman, Saying the e-mail was private, and they don't intend to publicly condemn his remarks.
Send this to your friends, and ask them to do the same. Tell them to keep passing it around until the whole country gets it. We are in a war. This political correctness crap is getting old and killing us.
If you agree with this, Please send it to all your friends, If not, simply delete it. GO, MICHIGAN STATE !
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I reiterate this email because, frankly, it pissed the hell out of me. I immediately responded, and after I clicked send, I thought I'd turn my response into a blog entry.
Here we go!
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The professor has a right to express himself as an individual, but he also has a responsibility to not alienate any of the students of the institution that employs him. It is one thing to argue that no one is “pure” in this war, whether you be a Northern European drawing anti-Muslim cartoons, or a Middle Easterner burning the American flag… but we are all killing each other; no one is exempt from blame.
The students are justified in being upset, and have every right to protest peaceably (without knowing the full story I can only assume they were not disrupting the educational process at their school with these protests). The professor is also justified in juxtaposing their feelings with his own. It’s called debate. Perfectly acceptable on a college campus.
However, the professor frankly sounds like a narrow minded buffoon when he states “If you do not like the values of the West - see the First Amendment - you are free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option.” The First Amendment is an American amendment, yes, but certainly allows for any person in our country the right to express themselves freely, especially in an institution of higher education. As our own Declaration of Independence stated, “all men are created equal”. Not just Americans.
So they are both allowed to express their opinions, however bigoted they be, but for a college professor to attack a portion of his student body is unprofessional. Although Michigan State should not fire him for expressing his thoughts, they should certainly reconsider his ethics in regard to the students (who are supposed to be the most important aspect of any college or university.)
~
And scene.
