My inbox is full today of cc’s of emails sent to Kramer Levin, the law firm that bowed to pressure from the Islamic supremacist anti-free speech group, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and canceled the MEF event they were hosting and at which I was scheduled to speak on April 18. Details here — primarily Hamas-linked CAIR is terrified of and wants to suppress my forthcoming book, Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam’s Obscure Origins.
I am moved by the eloquent, passionate defenses of freedom that so many people have written, and thank you for them. In response, Kramer Levin has raised the drawbridges and filled the moats with alligators. Their Director of Diversity, Lauren Tapper, has been contacted by at least two journalists to ask her about the firm’s unwillingness to allow for intellectual diversity; she has refused to speak to either one. Nor is she taking any calls. One journalist cc’d me on this note to Tapper:
Dear Ms Tapper,
I am on deadline for an article I am writing on your capitulation to Islamic supremacists at Hamas-linked CAIR. We were interested in your lack of diversity of intellectual thought and how you reconcile that with your position in the company.
Further, can we deduce that Kramer Levin supports the sharia and the prohibition on free speech made plain in your cancellation of the scholar Robert Spencer?
If you have not already, please take a stand for free inquiry and the freedom of expression against Islamic supremacist intimidation, thuggery and censorship. Email Kramer Levin’s Executive Director Nicholas Tortorella at ntortorella@kramerlevin.com and politely and firmly let him know the truth about Hamas-linked CAIR and the importance of free discourse. Also: please call 212.715.9100 or fax: 212.715.8000 and send polite but firm comments to Kramer Levin’s Director of Diversity, Lauren Tapper. E-Mail: ltapper@kramerlevin.com COPY TO: cauguste@kramerlevin.com, jmaier@kramerlevin.com, jrochon@kramerlevin.com, dcho@kramerlevin.com, nsimon@kramerlevin.com, mdunn@kramerlevin.com.
Thanks again to Pamela Geller for tracking down these email addresses and phone numbers.
UPDATE: Ah, now it begins to make sense. Look at the first comment below. An excerpt: “Mr. [Eric A.] Tirschwell leads a team of Kramer Levin associates in representing several Uighurs, a persecuted Muslim minority group from western China, who were wrongfully imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. In October 2008, the team won a historic ruling ordering immediate release into the United States of the firm’s detainee clients. While the appeal of that ruling was pending, three of Kramer Levin’s clients were released to freedom in Palau.”