When I see
a story is about someone named Charles Johnson (LGF) my reflex is to cringe. In this case it turns out that the CF in question is a hero who stands up against university establishment jerks who support "diversity" and terrorist-loving faculty members.
[blockquote]For the past year, Johnson has sounded alarms about the opinions of Arabic scholar Bassam Frangieh. And for the past year, CMC has circled the wagons.
Last week, in an unprecedented defensive gesture, the faculty voted 59-9 to support Frangieh on the basis of CMC’s “long and respected tradition of academic freedom and respect for diverse intellectual viewpoints” as well as diversity of “race…and national origin.”
Controversies over the radical views of Middle East studies professors are, sadly, not unusual on American campuses. What is different about the Frangieh case is that the administration at CMC has gone to great lengths to cover up the truth about Frangieh’s views–even editing his Wikipedia page–while ignoring the voluminous evidence Johnson has presented, and while rallying the faculty to oppose and isolate Johnson.
In April 2010, Johnson penned an article in the Claremont Independent, a conservative student newspaper, revealing that Frangieh had signed a petition in July 2006 calling upon intellectuals around the world to boycott “Israeli academic and scientific institutions that do not condemn the Israeli aggression against Lebanon.” The petition also described Hezbollah as “heroic,” and referred to Israel as a “Zionist killing machine.”
Amidst concerns raised by students and alumni, the administration defended Frangieh’s right to exercise “free speech and academic freedom.”
Undeterred, Johnson continued to pursue his complaint. He initially discovered the petition Frangieh signed by using a simple Google search; now he used Google Translate to search for articles in Arabic related to Frangieh, which he then had professionally translated–at his own expense.[/blockquote]
This college senior has a future in conservative politics.