A slightly different view
Reader comment on item: Redeeming the Wayward University
in response to reader comment: Being One of Said's Students: An Observation

Submitted by Classmate (United States), Nov 25, 2007 at 22:26

I partially concur with what my as-yet unidentified classmate has said about Said. He has not tried very hard to push any sort of anti-semetic agenda on us, or any overt agenda at all, for that matter. If anything, he has betrayed his attempts to hide his views by getting defensive whenever our case studies have touched on anything or anyone of Arabian culture or descent,.

No one has said anything negative in class about Arabs, but even mentioning things like "terrorists" or Moussaoui seems to get him a little edgy. At other times, he has slipped a few things in by way of hypothesis. He will propose a fact pattern to "demonstrate" an exception to the rule we've just discussed, and let the exception hang in the air for a while. In this manner, he has suggested that people who knowingly contribute to terrorist organizations should not be held criminally liable; that the non-hijacking members of the 911 plot should not have been convicted; and that the Afghani cultural practice of father-son penis kissing should be permissible in America for Afghani immigrants, even if they have lived here for several years and have had ample time to learn that such conduct is clearly illegal.

Again, this is not to say that he is covertly trying to push a particular agenda. Granted, he is obviously very liberal, but that is par for the course for S. Carolina Law faculty. Perhaps he is being reserved while he tests the waters here and tries to obtain tenure, but he is certainly not convincing anyone here of his political agenda--let alone trying to. So far, the only thing noteworthy about him is that he is not a very effective teacher. At all. I've learned more about criminal law over the past 3 days reading a commercial outline than I have throughout the semester.

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