Professor Indrek Wichman of Michigan State University has some Muslim students quite upset.Professor Wichman was
responding to a Muslim student protest:
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, many of my colleagues. I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceeded 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,Michigan State University isn't so happy with this kind of response.
Diversity training is on the way! The Arab-American reports :
The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) announces the decision by administrators at Michigan State University to hold diversity training - including an Islamic awareness workshop funded by the university and put on in conjunction with the Muslim Students Association (MSA) for its faculty and student body. CAIR-MI, along with representatives from the MSA at Michigan State University, met with university officials to discuss instituting diversity programming for faculty as a result of an incident earlier this year involving a tenured professor sending a hate email to the MSA.
In the email sent on February 28, 2006, Dr. Indrek Wichman refers to Muslims as"dissatisfied, agressive (sic), brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems."
"We are glad that Michigan State University affirmed its commitment to inclusion and having a healthy academic environment for its students by instituting these measures," said CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid. "Although administration earlier stated that they were dismayed by Dr. Wichman's boorish email, it is good to see them follow up their dismay with positive action."
No word yet on whether the Michigan State Women's Studies Department wants to wear a veil.
