Posted on 08/06/2007 12:15:14 PM PDT by Califreak
Professor Tells Muslims to Leave Country
Hooray for Michigan State University!
Well, what do we have here? Looks like a small case of some people being able to dish it out, but not take it. Let's start at the top.
The story begins at Michigan State University with a mechanical engineering professor named Indrek Wichman. Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student's Association. T he 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 Moslem 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 your dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal,
and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems 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 1st 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 and mandatory diversity training for faculty and a seminar on hate and discrimination for freshman. Now the 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, saying the e-mail was private, and they don't intend to publicly condemn his remarks. That will probably change. Wichman says he never intended for his e-mail to be made public, and wouldn't have used the same strong language if he'd known it was going to get out.
How's the left going to handle this one? If you're in favor of the freedom of speech, as in the case of Ward Churchill, will the same protections be demanded for Indrek Wichman? I doubt it.
[Verified as TRUE by Snopes.com: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/wichman.asp]
Too bad he’s back-pedaling, saying he wouldn’t have used such strong language if he’d know it would become public.
“If you do not like the values of the West - see the 1st Amendment -”
Sad to say that the First Amendment principles don’t necessarily apply elsewhere in the First World. Australia, Canada, Britain - I’m not aware they have blanket protections for free speech.
The good professor has eloquently expressed the feelings of most Americans. Bravo!
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from retribution for that speech..........
Kudos to him.
Where in here is there a "blanket protection" for free speech?.......
Seems the most appropriate course of action would be for the muslim students to undergo diversity training to better understand and live within the bounds of western culture.
This would include but not limited to not be offended by cartoons to the point of causing murder and not demanding reprimands of people who under the protections of the first amendment state their opinions.
The professor should have known this would get out. If it’s on the internet, it’s written down, it happened (to a point).
Freedom of speech means that the GOVERNMENT cannot limit your speech except in very special, narrow circumstances, fire-movie theater situations.
Figures it has to come from Engineering ( ;-) ).
It sure as heck wouldn’t come from social “sciences”.
Depends greatly on what you mean by retribution. What do you mean?
It’s two totally different things, as far as I am concerned.
This professor is a mechanical engineering professor. His beliefs have nothing to do with his class. The email was a private email.
Ward Churchill had classes where he was spewing his far out wingbat ideas to his students as part of the curriculum. His writings were professional. If I had a student at his school, I would not want him teaching my child. Period.
If the majority of student’s parents don’t want a teacher, the teacher should be out. I remember years ago I had the most incompetant teacher who had tenure. The students actually tried to get him fired. He literally didn’t know the subject matter at all, actually made up the answers to his exams. We couldn’t get rid of him.
Good idea.
The sooner the better.
A well spoken statement, and a perfect example of free speech.
If you find an e-mail address for the Professor, post it and I will send a letter of support.
But non-govt affiliated persons who don’t agree w/ what you say can?
MV
Professor should get out of Michigan State University and run for congress.
For the record, what you quoted isn’t the professor TELLING Muslims to leave.
He’s reminding them that they have the option.
There’s a world of difference, and you have committed headline shenanigans. :)
All the 1st Amendment does is prevent Congress from making laws to squelch “freedom of speech”. If I say anything against my employer, true or false, he can fire me for my “free speech” and there is nothing I or any ACLU lawyer can do about it. Many people think the 1st Amendment seems to protect them from anything bad happening to them from anybody for saying anything. It does not..........
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