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Welcome to Amerika.
By now you may have read the article in Front Page Magazine written by a Kuwaiti Arab Muslim student studying at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California about his run in with a professor regarding a pro American essay he wrote. Apparently the professor was upset that Ahmad al-Qloushi didn’t follow his ideology in lock-step fashion and called him into his office to threaten Ahmed by stating that he would visit the Dean of International Admissions (who has the power to take away student visas) to make sure he received regular psychological treatment. Obviously, anyone who doesn’t hold the same contempt for America as the good professor is just plain nuts.
Al-Qloushi is helping to form a chapter of Students for Academic Freedom to get his college and the state to adopt SB 5, the Academic Bill of Rights, and urges readers to write the board of trustees at Foothill College.
It’s the least I could do:
Dear Members of the Board,
I urge you to adopt SB 5, the Academic Bill of Rights, on your campus. This e-mail is in response to an article I read by a Muslim student attending your College who was harassed by one of your professors in a fashion disturbingly reminiscent of the soviet practice of institutionalizing dissidents as mentally ill. His not-so-veiled threat suggested that unless the student received regular psychological treatment he would visit the Dean of International Admissions (who has the power to take away student visas). The students only failing was that in an essay, he dissented from the professor’s views. The essay in question had to answer this: “Analyze the US constitution (original document), and show how its formulation excluded the majority of the people living in America at that time, and how it was dominated by America’s elite interest.†This, you must admit, is an extremely loaded question and it’s a near impossible task to respond to if you don’t agree with the premise. Additionally, the professor filed a formal complaint under section 5 of Foothill’s grievance code, of an “act or threat of intimidation or general harassment†when the student went public. The hypocrisy is astounding.
As a resident of California and a graduate from San Jose State University, I am appalled at the national trend of Universities and Colleges to stifle all forms of dissent from the academically/politically correct notion that America is an oppressive, war mongering, hegemonystic, jingoistic nation run by puppets of corporations, blah blah blah. I feel a certain kinship with the student in question since my parents immigrated to this great nation to escape the very real oppression of a nation behind the Iron Curtain. Whenever I hear citizens who have never been oppressed, who have the means to attend institutions of higher learning, etc. start spewing off on how oppressive this nation is I wish they could spend a single month in Cuba or North Korea to get a taste of real oppression. I mean this with no malice, it just seems their definition of oppression needs some perspective.
So again, I urge you to adopt SB 5, and as for the professor–I suggest you point out the fact to him that ‘dissent’ does not equate to ‘mentally ill.’ Unless of course you live in Cuba or North Korea.
I sent the letter to each member (fongpaul@fhda.edu, hayedward@fhda.edu, leidermanandrea@fhda.edu, hplotkin@plotkin.com) and I’ll now send this whole thing to Ahmad. I hope he likes it.
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