College Slammed for Censoring Class on Islam

A community college in Oregon is getting slammed for giving in to pressure from a branch of an organization that once was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a terror funding trial and censoring a class on Islam.

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The dispute erupted when officials at Lane Community College in Eugene, Ore., were pressured by CAIR to cancel a class proposed by a teacher, Barry Sommer.

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Approval came in due course, Sommer reported, but when the word of the course actually started getting out, the attacks started.

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“I did [an] interview and evidently within a few hours of when the interview was broadcast, CAIR got wind of it and issued the press release,” Sommer said. “In response they [the college] cancelled my class with no explanation.”

Officials at the school were not available for comment, but said in a prepared statement, “It was the desire to have a more intentional conversation about how to move forward that led to the decision to not proceed with the new noncredit class.”

The Washington state CAIR chapter had spearheaded the opposition to the class. Leader Arsalan Bukhari said Sommers gave them several reasons for concern.

“There are three main concerns. One is the person’s own views that he very publicly airs. He has a website he maintains where he has a cartoon picture of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban,” Bukhari said.

“That’s something that people should know by now is very insulting to Muslims. The second is, we’re wondering what kind of educational background he has. And of course, he’s a member of ACT for America. He’s the Oregon chapter head. That’s also one of the red flags that we saw,” Bukhari said.

Bukhari accused Act for America President and founder Brigitte Gabriel of being anti-Muslim.

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“CAIR considers Brigitte Gabriel and ACT for America a vicious, anti-Muslim hate group. They used that it seems in their press release as a springboard to say that I know nothing about Islam. They gave the usual list of vitriol, that I’m an Islamophobe, hate-monger, anti-Muslim and all of that,” Sommer observed.

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“Knowing the history of CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism funding trial and slush money to Hamas; a leader in the Flying Imams trial,” Sommer listed.

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