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Related Articles CAIR's Twisted Stand on Academic Freedom
by Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/3927/cairs-twisted-stand-on-academic-freedom Translations of this item: Hark the ringing prose about academic freedom by Rima Kapitan, the volunteer attorney in CAIR's Chicago office.
But in Chicago's other high-profile academic-freedom case concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict, CAIR is exactly on the other side, seeking to have the instructor fired. That would be the case of Thomas Klocek, a part-time adjunct professor since 1991 at DePaul University, the largest Catholic school in the United States. At a campus fair, Klocek expressed pro-Israel views, got into an altercation with two anti-Israel groups (Students for Justice in Palestine and United Muslims Moving Ahead), and, after they registered complaints against him, was suspended by the university. CAIR not only endorsed his suspension but, as articulated by Christina Abraham, CAIR-Chicago's civil rights coordinator (and a DePaul University law student), wanted him more severely punished.
Comments: (1) CAIR's position on Klocek hardly fits the description of a group taking part in the Free Campus Coalition to defend "the academic freedom rights of students and professors as violations occur." (2) As Ruberry points out, CAIR fancies itself a civil rights organization, but is it the normal work of a civil rights organization to recommend that a private institution fire an employee, thereby depriving him of his livelihood (not to speak of the health insurance required for his serious kidney condition)? Some might conclude that CAIR is no civil rights organization; that would certainly fit with my own perception since 1999. (3) The inconsistency documented here is par for the CAIR course; it routinely takes ostensibly principled positions that in fact adjust to its politics. (CAIR, for example, has jointly sponsored programs with United Muslims Moving Ahead.) For other examples of this pattern, see
(4) More broadly, such behavior points to the unreliable quality of CAIR's work, a theme that the reader can more fully explore at "Bibliography - My Writings on Not Trusting CAIR." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sep. 1, 2006 update: A transcript of the interview with Christina Abraham is now available at www.grantsrant.com/depaul/transcripts/CAIR-Abraham.pdf. Nov. 8, 2006 update: The "Free DePaul" website reports specifics on CAIR's involvement in Klocek being suspended, made available through discovery, at "Islamic Group's Threats to DePaul University Confirmed by New Evidence." Among other evidence: M. Yaser Tabbara of CAIR wrote on October 12, 2004, to the president of DePaul, Dennis H. Holtschneider,
There is much more along these lines; for anyone interested in CAIR's modus operandi, these documents are worth a careful look. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Related Topics: Academia, Arab-Israeli debate in the U.S., Council on American-Islamic Relations, Muslims in the United States receive the latest by email: subscribe to daniel pipes' free mailing list This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL. Reader comments (53) on this item
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