Ealain

This is a follow-up post to “GUILTY … CUZ I’M A MUSLIM?”

I just recieved this email from the University:

The University has completed its investigation of a highly regrettable incident that took place on the Boca Raton campus several weeks ago, involving a confrontation between an off-duty University employee and a student who was taking part in a protest outside a lecture given by Dr. Daniel Pipes. Because this matter involves a serious allegation of extraordinarily inappropriate behavior that will not be tolerated at FAU, I feel a strong responsibility to report to the University community the outcome of the investigation and the disciplinary action that is being taken. Here is a summation of findings by University administrators, who spoke with the student, the employee, the FAU police and others.

Although the employee was wearing a shirt that identified her as an FAU employee, she was off duty at the time of the incident and was attending the lecture as a member of the public. The student alleges that the employee spit upon her when she approached the employee to hand her a protest flyer. The employee admits that she behaved in a disrespectful manner to the student. However, she states that she made a feigned spitting gesture not at the student, but at the protest flyer that was being handed to her. There were no third-party witnesses, and the student declined to press charges. The employee has apologized to the student, has admitted that her attitude and actions were totally inappropriate and has expressed deep remorse. An examination of her employment record of more than 10 years showed no previous instance of misconduct of any kind.

Although the accounts of the incident given by the student and the employee differ, it is apparent that the employee’s actions were utterly reprehensible and require a strong, direct response from the University, which condemns behavior of this kind under any
circumstances. Policies and regulations of the FAU Board of Trustees require all employees to respect the right of lawful free expression and to tolerate differing opinions. These principles are fundamental to the University’s mission of promoting a free exchange of ideas. Even though the employee was off duty at the time of the confrontation, her behavior violated these standards. She therefore is being held accountable and appropriate disciplinary action is being taken, including a requirement that she take sensitivity training.

Dr. Charles Brown has reached out to the student to assure her that the University is supporting her in the aftermath of this unfortunate event. He has also reiterated the standing invitation to all students to bring any matter concerning the quality of life at FAU to Student
Affairs for discussion.

Conduct of the type that this employee displayed has no place in our University community, which has long celebrated diversity and advocated tolerance. Each year a vast assortment of lectures, discussions, debates, demonstrations, forums, seminars and other public presentations take place on all of our campuses without the occurrence of acts of intolerance, a fact that underscores the aberrant nature of the incident under discussion. This is a point of particular pride at a university whose student body ranks among the most diverse in the United States.

Now more than ever before it is critically important for universities to model the highest and best values of a democratic society. Florida Atlantic University intends to do just that in every conceivable way, from actively fostering a multicultural environment to vigorously opposing intolerance in all its guises. Like America itself, FAU is a diverse community of people from many cultures, backgrounds and traditions. Human diversity is a precious commodity that has made us strong and will keep us strong in the years ahead.

Opinions?

As a follow-up to yesterday’s GUILTY … CUZ I’M A MUSLIM?, I got to thinking about the short phrase that the professor told the girl before spitting on her: “You don’t belong here” and I realized that, if you really think along the same prejudiced lines as that professor, and many others, none of us really belong…

Muslims, Arabs, Middle Eastern peoples and anyone similar don’t belong because they’re all terrorists.

Christians don’t belong because they’re the ones that did all the crusades to kill people and always think they’re right.

Jews don’t belong because they killed Jesus on the cross and steal all our money by having all of the money jobs.

All other religions don’t belong because they’re too small to matter.

Japanese people don’t belong because they all bombed Pearl Harbor or supported those that did. But all Asians are the same, right? So let’s group them all in there.

All Spanish people don’t belong because they’re all illegal immigrants that won’t learn English.

Black people don’t belong because they’re the ones that do all of the crime, drugs, and gangs.

Indians don’t belong because they don’t want to belong, staying on their reservations and unfairly owning casinos to support their people. And Indians from India don’t belong because they share the same name–Indians.

White people don’t belong because they took the Native Americans from their lands, owned slaves, think they’re the best, and do anything to preserve that.

All other peoples can either be generalized into one of the groups above and, if they can’t, don’t belong because their population is too small to matter.

I guess the point is that NONE OF US BELONG. So why don’t we all just not-belong together?

Just as clarification, since I don’t use sarcasm much in my posts, I’m not being serious about these people not belonging. I included myself, after all: White, Christian. I’m trying to make the point that each and every person, when generalized and discriminated against, could be said to “not belong.” We shouldn’t judge a person by what people like them have done, generalizing and stereotyping. Each person is an individual, no matter who or what they are. It’s stupid to generalize and this post was an attempt to show how stupid it is.

I just got home from a class at University, signed onto the computer to check my email, got some emails from Facebook so logged in there. On the News Feed I saw that one of my friends had joined a group specific to my university: Demand FAU Denounce Employee Spitting on Muslim Student

Just from reading the title, I was shocked. So I clicked the link and read. Not only was I shocked about the incident, I was shocked that I hadn’t heard about it–in classes, on the news, etc.

The basic scenario: FAU had a guest speaker, Daniel Pipes, come speak. He was known for being anti-Muslim and Islam because of the terrorist attacks and extremist groups. A group of Muslim students got together to silently protest in front of the auditorium, holding signs. A professor at FAU attending Pipes’ talk told one of the the students “You don’t belong here” and then spat on her. The girl decided not to press charges because she didn’t want to be responsible for the professor’s termination but FAU has done nothing in response.

So I signed the petition: “A University is supposed to be a safe place for students to come and learn, grow, and expand as people. Every person is equal and has the right to express themselves unless it is harmful to somebody else. The student protesters were practicing under free speech and did nothing wrong. However, the professor DID do harm. If FAU does not do its part to eliminate these occurances, and make up for those that have, it goes against one of the biggest things students learn in university–that each and every person is equal. Instead, the university will be saying something completely different: that it is ok to discriminate against someone just because of their skin color, religion, ethnicity, race, and/or nationality. That isn’t what I want in my university.”

You don’t have to be a student there to sign the petition. In fact, it might help if non-students sign because it’ll show that the word is getting out and they can’t hide it. So, sign the petition?

See also: Muslim students draw backlash during protest

MySpace recently added a section to their site where politicians running for President in 2008 can create MySpace profiles and get their views heard. It’s a good idea for the politicians. So many people inhabit the MySpace world and by simply creating a profile with your views, you really can let many people know how you feel and get people on your team.

When I saw MySpace Impact, I went and visited most of the pages. I had my usual preconcieved views but I wanted to know the real story and decide who I would want to vote for. I’m not posting this to tell you who you should vote for. But I am posting this because it is beyond me how stupid one of them decided to be.

If your goal is to get people to view your profile and be able to see your views, why would you make your profile private? I’m not going to go out of my way to add you to my friends if I don’t agree with your views. And how can I agree with your views if I have no idea what they are? I can see a sub-point to it. If you have to be his friend to view his profile, some people might add him out of curiosity. Then, he will be networked to everyone on their list. However, that plan will reach less people than if you made it public. And if it were public, more people might see your views and agree with you, thus adding you to their lists validly.

I’d heard some good things about you Rudy Giuliani. And I really was interested in seeing how you felt about the issues. And while, now, I know how all of your competitors feel, I have no idea about you.