This will teach those filthy Islamophobes that Islam is a religion of peace: a professor is facing death threats for suggesting otherwise. Nicholas Damask, Ph.D., who has taught political science at Scottsdale Community College in Arizona for 24 years, is facing a barrage of threats, and his family, including his 9-year-old grandson and 85-year-old parents, are in hiding, while College officials are demanding that he apologize for teaching about the motivating ideology (Islam) behind the threat of Islamic jihad worldwide.
FRONTPAGE MAG – Robert Spencer Damask, who has an MA in International Relations from American University in Washington, DC, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Cincinnati, says he is “to my knowledge, the only tenured political science faculty currently teaching in Arizona to write a doctoral dissertation on terrorism.” He has taught Scottsdale Community College’s World Politics for each of the 24 years he has worked at the school.
Professor Damask’s troubles began during the current Spring semester, when a student took exception to three quiz questions. The questions were:
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QUESTION: Who do terrorists strive to emulate? ANSWER: Mohammed
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QUESTION: Where is terrorism encouraged in Islamic doctrine and law? ANSWER: The Medina verses [i.e., the portion of the Qur’an traditionally understood as having been revealed later in Muhammad’s prophetic career]
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QUESTION: Terrorism is _______ in Islam. ANSWER: Justified within the context of jihad.
Damask explained: “All quiz questions on each of my quizzes, including the ones in question here, are carefully sourced to the reading material. On this quiz, questions were sourced to the Qur’an, the hadiths, and the sira (biography) of Mohammed, and other reputable source material.” And indeed, the three questions reflect basic facts that are readily established by reference to Islamic texts and teachings and numerous statements of terrorists themselves.
Despite this, the student emailed Damask to complain that he was “offended” by these questions, as they were “in distaste of Islam.” Damask recounted.
Damask sent two lengthy emails to the student responding to his complaints, but to no avail. A social media campaign began against Damask on the College’s Instagram account. Damask notes: “An unrelated school post about a school contest was hijacked, with supporters of the student posting angry, threatening, inflammatory and derogatory messages about the quiz, the school, and myself.”
At this point, College officials should have defended Professor Damask and the principle of free inquiry, but that would require a sane academic environment. Scottsdale Community College officials, Damask said, “stepped in to assert on a new Instagram post that the student was correct and that I was wrong – with no due process and actually no complaint even being filed – and that he would receive full credit for all the quiz questions related to Islam and terrorism.”
On May 1, Damask had a conference call with Iudicello and Eric Sells, the College’s Public Relations Marketing Manager. Damask recalls: “I was not offered to write any part of the school’s response, and there was no discussion of academic freedom or whether the College was even supportive of me to teach about Islamic terrorism. The very first point I made with them on the call (and virtually the only input I had) is that I insisted that the College’s release was to have no mention of any actions to be required to be taken by me personally, I was veryclear about that.”
Predictably, Iudicello and Sells ignored that. They issued an apology to the student and to the “Islamic community,” and stated on the College’s Instagram page that Damask would be “required” to apologize to the student for the quiz questions, as the questions were “inappropriate” and “inaccurate,” and would be permanently removed from Damask’s exams.
Damask also had three phone calls with Kathleen Iudicello, Scottsdale Community College’s Dean of Instruction, who gave him a bracing introduction into today’s academic funhouse world, where if someone is offended by the truth, it’s the truth that has to be deep-sixed. “During one call with Iudicello,” Damask recounts, “she stated that my quiz questions were ‘Islamophobic,’ that before continuing to have any further class content on Islamic terrorism I would likely need to meet with an Islamic religious leader to go over the content, and that I would likely need to take a class (perhaps at Arizona State) taught by a Muslim before teaching about Islamic terrorism.”
“The irony here,” says Damask, “is that literally during this phone call, I and my wife were tossing socks and jammies and our nine-year-old grandson’s toys into a suitcase to get the hell out of the house because of the death threats made by Islamic commenters on the College’s Instagram page.”
College officials took no public notice of the fact, but the posts on its Instagram page discussing the incident had begun to fill up with threats against Damask, including these statements: “if he is still around I suggest the students take action to make sure he isn’t”; “drop the professor’s address I just wanna talk”; “what’s the instructor’s name and address, I just want to say ‘hi’”; “I wish everything bad on these kuffar” [unbelievers]; “I hope he suffers.”
According to Damask, “there are literally hundreds of posts like this. There have been death threats, at least one call for a school shooting, and at least one call to burn down the school. Again, all of these threats are still on the College’s Instagram page.” When he asked school police to shut down the social media posts in light of these threats, they told him the posts were being monitored. Yet the threats were not taken down.
On Sunday night, the school sent Damask the apology that he was to make to the offended student. It is full of the expected embarrassing groveling: “I know,” Damask is supposed to inform the student, “a simple apology may not be enough to address the harm that I caused but I want to try to make amends.” He promises the student: “I will be reviewing all of my material to ensure there’s no additional insensitivities.” (Apparently politically correct academics cannot be bothered to internalize basic rules of grammar.)
“It goes without saying,” says Damask, “that I will not apologize for anything, that it is perfectly appropriate to discuss Islam, Muhammad, the Quran, the hadiths and any other matter related to Islamic terrorism. Incidentally: there has been no official complaint, no due process for me, just a mad scramble by the school to appease Islam.”
YourValley Since the public apology was posted online, the school’s social media pages have gained several unhappy comments.
On Facebook, user Abdelhay Ala’a states the issue is not simply about these three quiz questions. “The quiz is based on a class that teaches Islamic Terrorism, which the slides for are available online,” Ms. Ala’a wrote.
“Removing three questions will do absolutely nothing as the class still propagates hateful information. To associate terrorism to Islam out of the exclusion of everything else, is to pose a threat to the Muslim community. Your students will grow to hate, fear and avoid us and may take a vengeful stance – all out of spreading misinformation. If you want to do your research well visit your local mosques, speak to different sheikhs, visit different communities, pick up the Quran, learn Arabic, do a thorough research.”
Other comments called for disciplinary action against the professor.
The cowering leftists are now the ones doing the groveling! God bless the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the U.S. Constitution and the Maricopa Community College governing board for standing up for the professor!
https://www.wnd.com/2020/05/look-sorry-professor-teaches-islamic-terrorism/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=wnd-newsletter&utm_campaign=dailyam&utm_content=newsletter
Too little too late.
My God, this guy did his PhD dissertation on terrorism, and the college thinks they know better?
This professor can be welcomed to the club. I was fired for voicing my concerns about a Moslem during the Islamic Ramadan bombathon (the Manchester bombing of young girls was part of the “Ramadan celebration). I foolishly mentioned to the young lady about not trusting this particular devout Muslim, citing Ibn Kathir’s interpretation of sura 8:28, and she reported me to my boss and I was fired cultural revolution style, complete with a fit, sr,tong young man outside to beat me if they felt too threatened by me because I refused to retract what I said or grumble bout the injustice done to me.
Sorry, Underdog. That is a shame. Btw, the woman was no lady.
Mussies need to understand that we will follow our God as spoken in the Bible, not their Quran. Mess with me or my family and you will go home in a way you won’t like!!!
I really feel sometimes that I have dropped down a rabbit hole as very little makes any kind of sense anymore.
Im glad to be 72 and not 27…
Im just watching the wheels come off as I dont live anywhere near the Western World though I am European.
The comments on the twitter feed by muslime wannabe terrorists consolidates his case. Muslimes are chafing at the bit for any chance to commit acts of violence. And almost all terrorist attacks in the past few decades can be attributed to these savage thugs.
These students are actively practicing jihad and the school admins are dhimmis. Professor Damansk is not only brave he is righteous and deserves our undivided support,
Amen!
Makes me believe the West is doomed. We are supposed to grovel and pretend discussing reality is taboo. I feel so sorry for this professor. He has been wronged by seething, violent scum and the cowardly morons who run that school and indulge these scum. It’s disgusting. They have no self-respect.
Sorely missed, Dr. Steve Carol.
I’ll be phoning the school first thing Monday morning for an explanation and to leave a complaint.
I am an Arizona taxpayer.
GE, let us know what they say.
A little before 9 AM this morning, I called Scottsdale Community College to (respectfully) ask questions and make comments. As usual when there is a controversy like this one, nobody answers the phones; everything goes to voicemail. I did however reach somebody at the switchboard who gave me the number of a school VP who is designated to take calls on this matter. I left a message and am waiting for a call back. It is only 11:25 AM here now, so—we’ll see.
Good news is that there has been considerable outrage about what happened. Kathleen Winn, governing member of Maricopa Community College District gave a strong condemnation of the action to the Arizona Daily Independent about the college’s actions, calling it censorship and hypocrisy, citing an example of a Mesa Community College Professor who showed a pornographic movie to his students which denigrated Jesus and offended a Christian student. In that case nothing could be done because of “academic freedom”
She also stated “And they’re asking the professor to apologize . That is the definition of hypocrisy. His questions showed Islamic terrorists are dangerous. Guess what, the people he upset threatened to kill him. He was not wrong—.”
We’ll see if I get a call back. Not holding my breath, but tomorrow is another day—and I intend to follow through. This is in my backyard!
GE, thanks for the update.
Good job, Greek! This isn’t my backyard, but I’m going to try to call too.
anyone care to speculate on the two recent shootings? One by father/son, the other knife charging guy? I think both are muzzies.
In that case….CAGE MATCH!!
Unfortunately, the first question was poorly phrased. It should have read: “Who do Islamic terrorists strive to emulate?” Not all terrorists are Muslim so the ones who aren’t are not necessarily trying to emulate Mohammed.
The class was specifically about “Islamic” terrorism so that clarification was not necessary.
The university is creating a hostile learning environment. The professor should sue for damages and punitive damages. The jury award should be considerable.
The freaking world is going full blown crazy , is it in the water, the food or in the air !
It starts in the classrooms.
Even earlier, at home , but indeed the classrooms are an important factor .
The university leadership will only support you if you bash whites, Christians, or men.
Sounds about the same as Yahoo banning me for commits about the religion of murder and hate .
This is what it means to a Christian nation when their leaders massively import Muslims into their nation. It means that at any time, anywhere, an innocent person who speaks truth about Islam can be targeted for DEATH by the Muslim community.
The HOLY ONE, the God of TRUTH commanded in the Bible, in the Ten Commandments: YOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS
The good, decent, patriotic American OBEYED Almighty God and spoke the truth.
The college find nothing wrong with the terrifying death threats made by Muslims against the truthful professor and his family — threatening non Muslims with death and killing them is Sharia which the college clearly approve of.
The police are doing nothing even though the professor and his family are in desperate need of 24/7 security to protect them from Muslims for the rest of their lives
America and other nations have placed their own people in EXTREME DANGER by massively importing Muslims.
ALL Western leaders have a moral responsibility to deal with this terrifying reality immediately.
Please God, Surround the professor and his family with Your Warrior, Guardian, Holy Angels all the days of their lives. Thank You God, Amen.
This country and the West in general is Lost. The browns, blacks and every shade but white has beat the whites at the demographics games. The USA will resemble South Africa in another generation or two. Invest in concrete and barbwire to fortify your homesteads.
Sure vote for Trump, I did and will, and play a delaying action, but most “Republicans” are more rightly called cuckservitves for good reason. The only thing they really want to conserve is their political power and income.
Just look at Europe – it’s practically lost and occupied. Within one generation the Muslims overpopulate the native Christians, who only have one wife and probably 2 children at best. Muslims can and do have sometimes 4 wives and 10-15 children. They teach them to hate anybody who is not Muslim.
Western academics and terrorism/counter terrorism practitioners tend to align jihad with terrorism/counter-terrorism studies inducing confusion and misunderstanding. The difference between terrorism and jihad is that terrorism is an act of defiance while jihad is a legal and religious act of devotion. Terrorism has few, if any, rules governing purpose and conduct (Hoffman, 2017, p. 27) while jihad, as a separate legal theory, is replete with limits and rules of engagement (Ahmad, 2015, pp. 6-7) (Albader, 2018, pp. 578, 598, 605) (Sinaulan, 2016, p. 20). Acts of violence that are not grounded in Islamic law are not jihad (Sinaulan, 2016, p. 18).
References
Ahmad, R. (2015). Principles and rules of jihad: A juristic approach. Al-Idah, 30(1), 1-10. Retrieved from https://doaj.org/article/5ff5619d34a248eb8da9e98ca3178141
Bonnie:
This looks like apologetics. I mean to say that the writer appears to justify jihad that may be required to take lives if the rules apply. The only problem is that Jihad does require the practitioner to “strike terror in the hearts of the unbeliever”, thus appropriately called terrorism to the person suffering its outcomes. Who is really going to complain if they play fast and loose with the law when it is convenient. After all, they are the ones making the rules. It is the same old “rules are applicable as they may apply” thing. That is why we see Muslims so busily engaged in either shooting or blowing up other Muslims when they are not engaged in terrorizing other kuffaar
Am I missing something in gawthrop’s remarks?