Posted on 01/10/2007 11:19:35 AM PST by Dark Skies
Hillel’s national president backed the showing of a controversial film on radical Islam at Pace University’s Hillel.
Pace Hillel President Michael Abdurakhmanov told The New York Times this week that university officials had threatened to call the police if his group aired “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.”
Abdurakhmanov said that following complaints by a Muslim student group, a dean told him not to show the film, warning him that police could be called in if the film was shown and Hillel members could be considered suspects in recent Islamophobic acts.
A Pace spokesman denied any coercion.
Pace Hillel, which canceled the showing, now is considering showing the film in the spring.
“Hillel supports the right of all students to vigorously explore and debate issues on campus under the First Amendment and in the spirit of academic freedom,” Hillel’s national president, Wayne Firestone, said in a statement.
“We support Pace Hillel, an independent student group, in its plan to show the movie ‘Obsession’... The movie has been viewed on dozens of campuses across North America, sponsored by Hillel and other student groups, and has contributed to students’ understanding of the Middle East.”
"a dean told him not to show the film, warning him that police could be called in if the film was shown and Hillel members could be considered suspects in recent Islamophobic acts."
This is beyond double secret probation. Did he also threaten leftists who gathered to see Gore's film? SUV dealerships have been torched across the country. Fingerprint those attending screens of that film if we are to be consistent.
David A. Caputo, the president of Pace University, has ricocheted from one crisis to another.Freshman enrollment this fall at his sprawling, six-campus university in Manhattan and Westchester County plunged after a big tuition increase. That led to a sizable deficit, a hiring freeze, demonstrations, the threat of a no-confidence vote by the faculty, and attacks on his annual compensation of nearly $700,000.
“It’s been a hell of a grim semester,” Dr. Caputo said in a recent interview.
Now he is fighting to save his presidency at a time when many university leaders have been ousted after faculty or student challenges.
My ala mater. First year tuition room and board was less than $5600 in 1979. The article says it is now $29K for just tuition.
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