Concerned Citizens for National Security Respond to Travesty of Academic Freedom

Submitted by V Nolon (United States), Feb 18, 2007 at 01:10

Dear Mr. Reinharz:

Colleges and universities are supposed to be places where the impartial presentation of facts elicits critical thinking on the part of students. Some of the more recent actions taking place at Brandeis University belie this caveat of education. By your own admission, Brandeis" encourages informed and civil discourse about the problems and issues of the Middle East" and yet rescinds and places on hold an invitation to the foremost authority in the United States on this subject!

According to the Drudge Report, 70% of Americans believe that America will be attacked in the year 2007 by terrorists on a grand scale. As history has a way of repeating itself, it is important to note that Germany used university campuses as a base to de-legitimize their victims prior to the War. You and your university are being used in the same way. Since it appears that you have joined those who can't differentiate between education and propaganda, Concerned Citizens for National Security will cite your accountability in suppressing free discourse in the name of political correctness.

"These" people, particularly Daniel Pipes, "who are (were) being invited" …to Brandeis University, are America's first line of defense against weapons of mass destruction! Without the organized, educational exegesis that Mr. Pipes brings to the discussion regarding the issues related to the United States and the Middle East, or more notably, Islam, the competence needed to discern the depth and level of the threat facing Western democracy would be stalled in the quagmire of politically correct drivel.

Moreover, anyone who has been in the company of Daniel Pipes, with his quiet, refined, scholastic mannerisms would be hard-pressed to define his style as "theatrical", as John Hose so glibly states. While we don't doubt Brandeis' ability to produce "serious discussion", we object to the insinuation that Daniel Pipes' lectures do not, in fact, promote VERY serious discussion by virtue of the clear insights and elucidation he brings to this subject of major concern.

A number of our members are graduates of Brandeis University and they are becoming embarrassed to have a sheepskin hanging on their walls from an institution whose inability to discern the real dangers facing this nation, and whose fear of the "weapon of mass destruction" has resulted in the silencing of objective discourse. This is a reactive and pre-emptive effort to control campus speech and an obvious travesty of academic freedom.

Mr. Reinharz, we are expecting you to have the moral fortitude to re-instate the speaking engagement at Brandeis with Mr. Daniel Pipes.

Regards,

Executive Director

V Nolon

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