Critical Mass

Via Quatar's English language daily, The Peninsula:

Qatar has pledged that it will take part in financing the first Islamic university to be established in Europe by next month.

The university, named the 'Ibn Sina Institute for Human Science', will be opened in the French city of Lilie, located in the northern part of the country.

The university will "take the responsibility of qualifying imams and guides in order to tackle issues related to Muslim minority issues." One thing in particular caught my eye:

The [school] will also focus on teaching French and qualifying students in Shari'a law to enable the imams able to interact with European realities in order to address both Muslims and non-Muslims in France.

Another subject, civics, will be presented to ensure imams are aware of French laws.

Are they teaching civics so the Muslim students can understand the laws in order to flout them, or to abide by them? And what exactly does "interact with European realities" mean to them? I just hope this group of Islamists are mainstream and peaceful.

From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

A report released on Wednesday on the political views of faculty members accuses professors of liberal "groupthink," a stance that the report says puts them at odds with the beliefs of most Americans on national and international issues.

Really?!?!

CNSNews.com reports a Ph.D. student at Marquette University has been ordered to remove a "patently offensive" Dave Barry joke from his office door:

In August, Stuart Distler, a doctoral student teacher, posted a quotation from humor columnist Dave Barry on his office door. "As Americans, we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless," the sign stated. "I refer, of course, to the federal government."

On Sept. 5, Philosophy Department Chairman James South informed Distler via email that the sign had been taken down because it was "patently offensive."

"While I'm a strong supporter of academic freedom," South wrote, "I'm afraid that hallways and office doors are not 'free-speech zones.' If material is patently offensive and has no obvious academic import or university sanction, I have little choice but to take note."

Next on the list of comedians to banish are Bill Cosby and that guy who draws Garfield.

With plagiarism on the rise at Yale, the administration has decided to apply itself to solving the problem by declaring Yale’s first ever “Academic Integrity Awareness Week,” which will begin on Tuesday, Oct. 24 with speeches from Peter Salovey and Jon Butler, deans of Yale’s undergraduate and graduate schools respectively. They apparently plan to stamp out lying, cheating, and stealing at Yale by asking people not to lie, cheat, and steal.

Now that the administration has acted so aggressively, this surely signals the end of plagiarism (or what the Yale Daily News calls "irresponsible research").

-Dan Gelernter 

The British paper The Guardian reports today that British educators are being urged to keep an eye on Muslim-looking students:

Lecturers and university staff across Britain are to be asked to spy on "Asian-looking" and Muslim students they suspect of involvement in Islamic extremism and supporting terrorist violence, the Guardian has learned.

They will be told to inform on students to special branch because the government believes campuses have become "fertile recruiting grounds" for extremists.

Now, on one hand, I can see the point of this; the fact of the matter is, terrorist atrocities are being carried out in a much higher number by Muslims than by people of other religious/national groups, and more often by those who "look Muslim" than by those who do not, simply because they are, in fact, Middle Eastern in heritage and Muslim in religion, with the accompanying grooming standards.  However, I do question whether teachers are the best people to be looking into this, rather than appropriate law enforcement officials.  I would hate to see this turn into a finger-pointing, turn-in-my-neighbor, get-back-for-old-rivalries program, but the potential is there.

Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute wrote in a piece for the Albuquerque Journal called "Liberal Bias Rules UNM Law School" that "the University of New Mexico Law School is not a place for free and open debate" due to its leftist leanings:

A 2004 study by the New Mexico Federation of College Republicans found that 100 percent of the full-time professors at the law school were registered Democrats. The Federalists could not find a conservative to serve as their faculty adviser.

By contrast, the student body is politically diverse. Students complain that courses lack objectivity.

Read the full story for Ms. Sommers thoughts on the bias, but most telling is her conclusion:

Sixties-style activism and political fervor have their place, but at the UNM Law School these are practiced at the expense of the intellectual, economic and civic mission that a state law school is expected to fulfill.

According to SignOnSanDiego.com, "A San Diego State professor has been using his university computer's electronic mail account to organize rallies against illegal immigration and correspond with the controversial Minutemen" [emphasis mine] - but the University wants him to stop.  According to the article:

Hurlbert said he has been involved in organizing the Puritan Rush Hour Education Campaign, small groups of like-minded people who display anti-illegal-immigration picket signs on busy thoroughfares, such as Del Mar Heights Road.

He said the SDSU administration never stopped his colleagues from soliciting him via university e-mail for any number of nonwork-related causes, including the Gay Pride Festival and Girl Scout cookies.

Bonnie Zimmerman, associate vice president for faculty affairs for SDSU, says the University's present request for Hurlbert to cease-and-desist from such political emailing stems not from his particular political viewpoint, but rather from a state policy which "forbids use of public resources for nonwork-related activities, whether they're political or not."

Hurlbert, on the other hand, says he won't quit, and "the university is persecuting him for his ideological beliefs."  The San Diego chapter of the ACLU has said it will defend Hurlbert "if it were determined that he was doing nothing different from the rest of his colleagues."