At New York City’s Pace University, a Jewish group (Hillel) sought to show the film Obsession (what I’ve called “the best documentary on what America’s up against in the WoT”), a film many Muslim students at Pace find “objectionable,” for a variety of reasons.
The New York Post recently (“Pace University’s Film Police,” Jan 10, 2007) reported on this flap and published a letter-to-the-editor from Pace University’s President, David A. Caputo, which went;
“The President of Pace University’s Hillel group appears to have misconstrued the intentions of the dean who brought our Muslim student group together with Hillel to engage in a constructive dialogue about the proposed showing of the film “Obsession.”
"Because our campuses have been troubled by hate and bias-related incidents this Fall, our dean hoped to start a discussion about postponing it to a calmer time.
"As your recent editorial notes, she tried to address the potential for disruption in events about contentious issues like terrorism. If disruption seems possible, we get ready to protect orderly civil discourse.
"Pace condemns anti-Semitism, hate crimes, attacks, acts of vandalism against any group.
"We welcome a highly diverse and richly opinionated student body and events that help students learn about the world.
"Campuses are the crucible where ideas are challenged and discussed openly and freely and we are committed to staying that way.
"Obsession, the students tell us, will be shown next semester.”
But according to the NY Post, Hillel President Michael Abdurakhmanov claims that school staffers threatened him with sanctions and physically restrained him when he tried to defend the film.
A writer for the Pace University paper, Chris Cory claims that officials were looking to keep the film from being aired, at least until tensions over some recent anti-Muslim “hate crimes” dissipated.
As the Post Editorial (Pusillanimous Pace Jan 16, 2007) notes, “In any event, if the school were truly committed to freedom of expression, the only "dialogue" needed would be to convey one simple message: Anyone thinking of disrupting the film or committing violence will face severe repercussions.
End of discussion.
“Officials could have used the occasion to make it absolutely clear that no one at Pace can be barred from showing a film - even if it's not a left-wing film. But that wasn't the goal.”
Completely correct!
A closer look at President Caputo’s letter shows a very specific agenda;
“The President of Pace University’s Hillel group appears to have misconstrued the intentions of the dean who brought our Muslim student group together with Hillel to engage in a constructive dialogue about the proposed showing of the film “Obsession.”
TRANSLATION: The President of the Hillel group misconstrued the dean’s bringing in a raucous mob of Arab & Muslim students denouncing both the Hillel group and the film Obsession as some form of threat or an attempt at intimidation. Obviously neither the Hillel group, nor the NY Post understand the meaning of “constructive dialogue.”
“Because our campuses have been troubled by hate and bias-related incidents this Fall, our dean hoped to start a discussion about postponing it to a calmer time."
The New York Post recently (“Pace University’s Film Police,” Jan 10, 2007) reported on this flap and published a letter-to-the-editor from Pace University’s President, David A. Caputo, which went;
“The President of Pace University’s Hillel group appears to have misconstrued the intentions of the dean who brought our Muslim student group together with Hillel to engage in a constructive dialogue about the proposed showing of the film “Obsession.”
"Because our campuses have been troubled by hate and bias-related incidents this Fall, our dean hoped to start a discussion about postponing it to a calmer time.
"As your recent editorial notes, she tried to address the potential for disruption in events about contentious issues like terrorism. If disruption seems possible, we get ready to protect orderly civil discourse.
"Pace condemns anti-Semitism, hate crimes, attacks, acts of vandalism against any group.
"We welcome a highly diverse and richly opinionated student body and events that help students learn about the world.
"Campuses are the crucible where ideas are challenged and discussed openly and freely and we are committed to staying that way.
"Obsession, the students tell us, will be shown next semester.”
But according to the NY Post, Hillel President Michael Abdurakhmanov claims that school staffers threatened him with sanctions and physically restrained him when he tried to defend the film.
A writer for the Pace University paper, Chris Cory claims that officials were looking to keep the film from being aired, at least until tensions over some recent anti-Muslim “hate crimes” dissipated.
As the Post Editorial (Pusillanimous Pace Jan 16, 2007) notes, “In any event, if the school were truly committed to freedom of expression, the only "dialogue" needed would be to convey one simple message: Anyone thinking of disrupting the film or committing violence will face severe repercussions.
End of discussion.
“Officials could have used the occasion to make it absolutely clear that no one at Pace can be barred from showing a film - even if it's not a left-wing film. But that wasn't the goal.”
Completely correct!
A closer look at President Caputo’s letter shows a very specific agenda;
“The President of Pace University’s Hillel group appears to have misconstrued the intentions of the dean who brought our Muslim student group together with Hillel to engage in a constructive dialogue about the proposed showing of the film “Obsession.”
TRANSLATION: The President of the Hillel group misconstrued the dean’s bringing in a raucous mob of Arab & Muslim students denouncing both the Hillel group and the film Obsession as some form of threat or an attempt at intimidation. Obviously neither the Hillel group, nor the NY Post understand the meaning of “constructive dialogue.”
“Because our campuses have been troubled by hate and bias-related incidents this Fall, our dean hoped to start a discussion about postponing it to a calmer time."
TRANSLATION: There have already been some acts of vandalism around our campuses that we’ve considered “bias-crimes” or “hate crimes” and we felt that the airing of this film might stir up even more anti-Muslim sentiment. Therefore the dean merely sought to postpone the film’s airing to a “calmer time,” like after the Caliphate is imposed upon New York City, in the wake of our inevitably loosing the “War on Terror,” or should I say, “illegal, immoral war on terror.”
“As your recent editorial notes, she tried to address the potential for disruption in events about contentious issues like terrorism. If disruption seems possible, we get ready to protect orderly civil discourse.
“Pace condemns anti-Semitism, hate crimes, attacks, acts of vandalism against any group.”
TRANSLATION: We condemn ALL hate, but it must be remembered that some hate is worse than other hates.
Anti-black hatred is most strongly condemned, anti-Semitic hatred is also condemned, just not as strongly as anti-black and now anti-Muslim hatred, while anti-white hatred is not really condemned at all.
I mean it’s just common sense to hate whites.
So, in the event of any disruptions (riots, general thuggery, etc) we are ready to protect orderly civil discourse, according to the hierarchy of hate, of course. So if a group of whites sought to disrupt a black anti-white event, we’d come down very hard, if a group of blacks sought to disrupt a Jewish event we’d come down pretty hard, but if a group of Muslims seeks to disrupt a white, or Jewish event, then we either side with the Muslims, or simply ignore the disruption.
What part of that policy do you not understand?!
“We welcome a highly diverse and richly opinionated student body and events that help students learn about the world.
“Campuses are the crucible where ideas are challenged and discussed openly and freely and we are committed to staying that way.”
TRANSLATION: Look, we’re a “diversity first” institution!
We’ve long ago replaced academic standards with feel-good embraces of emotionalism, and buzz-words like “diversity” (an umbrella term used to rationalize admitting students who are sub-par academically, over more academically gifted candidates in the name of “diversity”).
Here, Christians are “Christo-fascists and free market advocates are “cruel social Darwinists,” and the worst thing that anyone can be is a straight, white heterosexual male, because they’re all that is evil in this world. THAT’S what we call an “open and free discussion.”
“Obsession, the students tell us, will be shown next semester.”
TRANSLATION: Thanks to your editorial meddling, we’ve decided to allow the dread film (Obsession) to air this Spring, but both Hillel and you will pay for this.
This ain’t over by a long shot.
By the way, Obsession: The Movie is a GREAT film!
http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/
Ah, Pace U.! Remember when a Koran was "found" in a campus toilet, some of us in the Rightosphere suspected it had been planted.
ReplyDelete(A la Don Adams) Agent 99, It's the old "Koran in the toilet" trick!
What a place!
ReplyDeleteI love the Orwellian nature of "diversity."
The "We're all equal around here, only some of us are a little more equal than others."
When some folks get "offened" they're told to, in effect, "suck it up," while if folks from a "favored" or "more equal" group get offened, then that's a huge problem.