MSU-YAF + Anti-Muslim Professor = Embarrassment all around

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By J. Edward Tremlett (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

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"We don't know anything about this, and we don't know how our name got involved," said (Jim Colbert, communications director for the organization) in a phone interview. "We are not part of this."

Unsurprisingly, the Holocaust Center canceled the event. The entry on MSU-YAF's blog, the Spartan Spectator, was removed without comment, as was the facebook event page, shortly thereafter.

Note the tagline: "Because Islam is a wicked, vicious faith." This is a phrase MSU-YAF's Chairman, Kyle Bristow, has used before.

According to Kyle Bristow: Just for the record, I do not think that Islam should be allowed at an "academic institution of learning and enlightenment." Over the last 1,300 years, what has Islam contributed to the world except for slavery, war, terrorism, and oppression? I do not apologize for not approving of a heresy.

Charming, huh? I bet he and Professor Wichman would have made some sweet music together, on that stage. Maybe all the people who sent letters like this around could have come together to feel the love.

It's really too bad that MSU YAF - who usually have better organizational and communication skills than this - couldn't make this speech happen. The last time Wichman spoke about the matter, he was still making it sound like a horrible misunderstanding, and seemed eager to put the whole mess behind him. Letting him take the stage could have put the lie to that, and let the MSU community see what he's really all about, now that the furor over his comments has died down.

For the record, Wichman absolutely had the right to speak his mind, however offensively, as does Bristow, and any other person who want to criticize Islam, mainstream or radical. But when someone uses a university email account to drop something like that letter to a student organization, claims to speak for "many, many, many of (his) colleagues," and leaves in doubt whether a Muslim student could ever really feel welcome, supported and treated equally in his class, then it's time for that professor to look for another job, as he's shot holes through the principal mission of any institution of higher learning.

And if you have to ask what that is, don't feel bad. Dr. Wichman doesn't seem to know, either.

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J. Edward Tremlett is a lot of things, currently. He's back in the states after a seven-year stint in Dubai, UAE. He's been published in such diverse places as The American Partisan, the International American, The End is Nigh, Pyramid (more...)

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