At Vanderbilt, many minority students have in recent days renewed a push for the university to take action against Carol Swain (see photo below), a tenured professor of political science and law, over a column she wrote in January after the terrorist attacks in Paris against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
In the January column, Swain asked, "What would it take to make us admit we were wrong about Islam? What horrendous attack would finally convince us that Islam is not like other religions in the United States, that it poses an absolute danger to us and our children unless it is monitored better than it has been under the Obama administration?"
Many students and others said that the column stereotyped all Muslims in a way that was profoundly biased, but the university defended Swain's right to free speech.
Why is pointing out that Muslims have been responsible for almost all of the terrorism around the world in the last two decades offensive? If it's a fact, if it's true, then why are those who bring it to our attention libeled as bigots? Are we to pretend that somehow the evil carried out in France tonight could just as easily have been done by Amishmen?
We can bury our heads in the sand and keep telling ourselves that most Muslims are not violent, and that may be true, but it's irrelevant. Tens of thousands are violent, and if Mr. Obama has his way tens of thousands more of them will soon be living among us.
Professor Swain is correct. The world does have a problem with Islamic radicals, and we delude ourselves to our peril if we insist that we don't, and, like the Vanderbilt students, insist instead on punishing those who say we do.
