Free Republic

Last spring, an Islamic group came to Temple University with an extremely generous offer: $1.5 million for an endowed chair in Islamic studies to honor religion professor Mahmoud Ayoub. But after months of talks, the deal fell apart when trustees and others raised concerns about the donor, the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), ---snip--- David Horowitz, head of the Los Angeles-based Freedom Center, called IIIT "Islamo-fascists" and "part of a jihad against the West."

I must admit that I left the Millersville hearings on academic freedom angry, because I had the nagging feeling that the Pennsylvania House Select Committee was missing the point. I felt like I’d been had. It has been my responsibility to report on the hearings at Temple University and Millersville University for The Campus Report, and I will be attending the final hearings on May 31 and June 1, as well as reading the committee’s report when it comes out. When I learned of the committee several months ago, I had high hopes for Pennsylvania students that the investigation by...

“The only reason why Mao Zedung is given the bad reputation he has is because of the bourgeois press and their racism toward the Chinese,” said Marlene Kowal’s professor on the first day of the history class, Contemporary China. Kowal, a senior at Temple University in Pennsylvania, offered a number of examples of things frequently said in classrooms at Temple and presumably at other universities across the country when she spoke last week at the Academic Freedom conference in Washington, D.C. In the same class, Kowal’s professor declared herself to be a Maoist and that the purpose of her teaching...