Author: Daniel Pipes
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: September 18, 2006
Hark the ringing prose about academic freedom by Rima Kapitan, the volunteer attorney in CAIR's Chicago office. "Another casualty in the war against civil liberties in this country since September 2001 is the right to academic freedom. Professors and students who diverge too much from the current political and economic orthodoxy are being silenced around the country. Among the most vulnerable have been adjunct professors, foreign professors and students, and professors and students who support Palestinian national rights or who oppose US foreign policy decisions...
"CAIR-Chicago is joining other organisations in an effort to defend academic freedom... (it) has also initiated the creation of an academic freedom coalition called the Free Campus Coalition, which will defend the academic freedom rights of students and professors as violations occur. Freedom on universities is important because of the formative role that universities play in the lives of students, and because of the essential role they play in their communities."
The immediate beneficiary of this August 14 rhetoric is one Douglas Giles of Roosevelt University, who lost his job supposedly for just mentioning Zionism in his "World Religions" class and for allowing students to speak about Zionism. According to Giles, a student asked a question about Zionism, which he answered. Then, presto, he was fired by his department chair, Susan Weininger. The disagreement is scheduled for arbitration in September. Whatever the facts in this incident, CAIR's Chicago office stands fully behind Giles."
But in Chicago's other high-profile academic-freedom case concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict, and there, CAIR is exactly on the other side, seeking to have the instructor fired.
That would be the case of Thomas Klocek, a part-time adjunct professor since 1991 at DePaul University, the largest Catholic school in the US. At a campus fair, Klocek expressed pro-Israel views, got into an altercation with two anti-Israel groups (Students for Justice in Palestine and United Muslims Moving Ahead), and, after they registered complaints against him, was suspended by the university.
CAIR not only endorsed Klocek's suspension but, as articulated by Christina Abraham, CAIR-Chicago's civil rights coordinator, wanted him more severely punished.