Nicholas Damask, a professor at Scottsdale Community College in Arizona, recently gave a quiz to his class on World Politics. Three questions on it offended a Muslim student, who first made known his displeasure to the professor by email, labeling those quiz questions, and their answers, as being “in distaste of Islam.” Professor Damask attempted to explain the sources for those questions, and their answers, but this did not satisfy the student, who posted about the whole matter, including the quiz questions, on the social media page of a Muslim comedian. That subsequently led to an online campaign, posted on the Instagram account of the college, of vilification, hate, and death threats, directed at Professor Damask by Muslims. As a consequence, Professor Damask had to go into hiding with his grandson and elderly parents.
Here are the three multiple-choice questions to which the Muslim student took offense:
- Q. Who do terrorists strive to emulate? A. Mohammed
- Q. Where is terrorism encouraged in Islamic doctrine and law? A. The Medina verses [i.e., the portion of the Qur’an traditionally understood as having been revealed later in Muhammad’s prophetic career]
- Q. Terrorism is _______ in Islam. A. justified within the context of jihad
As the online baying by Muslims for the professor’s blood continued, the college’s administration did not take down the site, nor remove the death threats. Instead, it entered the fray, not to defend Professor Damask and the principle of academic freedom, but to denounce Damask without giving him a chance to discuss those three questions-and-answers, and the textual sources that justified their appearance. They did not ask him to explain himself; he had already been consigned to the outer darkness without any discussion or possibility of due process. In this Star Chamber proceeding, in an Instagram post the interim SCC President Chris Haines not only agreed that the quiz questions were “inaccurate, inappropriate, and not reflective of the inclusive nature of our college,” but said Damask “will be apologizing” to the offended student.
On what basis did Chris Haines know that those three quiz questions were “inaccurate”? Had Haines studied the sources which Professor Damask relied on? Why does one suspect that President Haines has never read a single word of the Qur’an, nor any of the Sahih (authentic) Hadith, and therefore has no basis on which to declare those questions to be “inaccurate”? Did she know that Muhammad is regarded as the “Perfect Man” and “Model of Conduct” (54:31, 33:21) which is naturally why he is to be emulated? Did she ever read the Qur’anic verses — 3:151, 8:12 among them — that call for striking terror into the hearts of the Infidels? Did she know about the celebrated hadith in which Muhammad said “I have been made victorious through terror”? Wouldn’t that knowledge remove her doubts about the “accuracy” and the “appropriateness” of those three quiz questions? Or would such knowledge not have changed her mind at all, because for her what mattered was not truth, but only the effect of those quiz questions on sensitive Muslims, so quick to take offense at “hurtful remarks” and who, in the interests of Diversity and Inclusivity, must always be placated?
According to Haines, the college was also “permanently” banning those questions from future quizzes. Haines implied they violated the college’s nondiscrimination policy. “We applaud the student for bringing this to our attention – and encourage any student or employee to speak out” when offended by quiz questions, Haines said.
The only person to be applauded here is not the student who complained because he didn’t like anything said “in distaste of Islam” [sic], but the death-threatened Professor Damask. It is he who dared to include such questions about Islam in his quiz, when nowadays it would have been all too easy to ignore certain aspects of the faith, in order to avoid the contretemps, and the threats, that inevitably follow any attempt nowadays to discuss unappetizing home truths about Islam. And there was also Professor Damask’s refusal to sign the letter of apology that President Haines had assured Muslim students would be forthcoming, a groveling affair that Haines had prepared for him to sign. This “prepared letter” was reminiscent of the kind of self-incriminating documents that Chinese officials would prepare in advance and force the targets of their terror campaigns to sign during the Cultural Revolution.
Damask had tried to explain to those who would listen – which did not include the administrators whose minds were already made up — that “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.”
Damask sent two detailed emails to the student who had originally taken offense, responding to his complaints, but these had no effect. That’s when the student posted the questions, and his complaint, on the College’s Instagram account. A social media campaign grew, and grew, and became ever more threatening. 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, Scottsdale Community College officials, who should have defended Professor Damask’s exercise of academic freedom, instead joined the attack on him. An administrator “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 the basis of what knowledge of Islam could that administrator have asserted that the student was “correct” in complaining about the three quiz questions? Is it the position of that administrator that Muslims do not try to emulate Muhammad? What about Qur’an 54:31 and 33:21, that explicitly tell Muslims that Muhammad is the Perfect Man and the Model of Conduct? And does that administrator believe that terrorism is not encouraged in “Islamic doctrine and law”? What about such Qur’anic verses as 3:151 and 8:12, that explicitly command Muslims to “strike terror in the hearts” of the Unbelievers? Or what of the Hadith in which Muhammad declares that “I have been made victorious through terror”? Do the SCC administrators who were so intent on denouncing Professor Damask for his “inaccurate” questions in any position to do so? What do they know about Islam? Apparently, nothing. They have forgotten Wittgenstein’s advice: “whereof we do not know, thereof we should not speak.” How dare these ignorant-of-Islam administrators take away from a faculty member, teaching a subject that he has been occupied with for 24 years (Damask wrote his doctoral dissertation on terrorism), the right to decide what constitutes an appropriate question, and the correct answer, for his own quiz? What is left of a faculty member’s academic autonomy and freedom of inquiry if administrators substitute their judgment for his on such matters as what questions he may ask, and what answers he may be allowed to accept? They took him to task not because he has been in any way inaccurate or pedagogically unsound, but because he refused to confine himself to what is politically correct.
Here is the craven apology of Interim President of the College Chris Haines to the complaining student and, by extension, to all the others who railed against Professor Damask:
SCC deeply apologizes to the student and to anyone in the broader community who was offended by the material. SCC Administration has addressed with the instructor the offensive nature of the quiz questions and their contradiction to the college’s values. The instructor will be apologizing to the student shortly, and the student will receive credit for the three questions. The questions will be permanently removed from any future tests.
SCC cultivates success when individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds are respected and empowered to contribute. We all benefit by embracing a diversity of voices, viewpoints, and experiences.
The prepared letter that was to have been sent to the complaining student (and meant as well for all those who shared his wounded feelings) had Damask offering a “sincere apology” for “offensive material,” though he recognized that a“simple apology may not be enough to address the harm that I caused, but I want to try to make amends.” Asked to sign the letter, Damask refused.
At this point, who knows what the pusillanimous and craven administrators at Scottsdale Community College might have done to Professor Damask had the Chancellor of the Maricopa County Community College District not become involved? Damask has tenure; Haines could not remove him from his job, but there are many other ways to make a faculty member’s life difficult, from the assignment of courses, to the piling on of administrative tasks, to the scheduling of class meetings, to the withholding of research and travel grants.
But then something very good happened. The District announced on May 10 that the three questions Professor Damask had included in that quiz, and that were then posted on social media, had been taken out of context — presented as part of a larger campaign of deliberate vilification of Islam — fell properly within the scope of the course.
The office of the Chancellor promised an immediate investigation. From azcentral.com:
Steven Gonzales, the district’s interim chancellor, said he was troubled by a “rush to judgment” by the college and its failure to follow proper procedures in responding to the controversy.
“I apologize, personally, and on behalf of the Maricopa Community Colleges, for the uneven manner in which this was handled and for our lack of full consideration for our professor’s right of academic freedom,” Gonzales said in a statement.
Of the investigation into the whole affair at SCC by the District, Chancellor Gonzales said, “I expect this to be completed with all deliberate speed. Upon conclusion of the investigation, I will ensure appropriate accountability wherever any failures occur.”
“The district also plans to form a Committee on Academic Freedom to champion academic freedom education and training and to resolve academic freedom disputes in the hope of ensuring this fundamental academic value is better understood and realized alongside our longstanding commitment to the value of inclusion,” Gonzales said.
The investigation will not involve the professor, who is at no risk of losing his job, Gonzales said.
The Maricopa County Community Colleges’ governing board issued a statement Monday afternoon applauding the interim chancellor’s decision.
“There has been a significant amount of unfounded misinformation distributed regarding the curriculum, student, and professor,” the board statement said. “That misinformation has led to serious allegations and threats to one of our own faculty members with an otherwise unblemished past.”
The professor, Nick Damask, said threats made against the school and himself on social media were so alarming that he and his family left their home for their safety.
In his 24 years of teaching at the college, Damask said college administrators often would send emails addressed to its “SCC family members.”
“It seems pretty awful to me to throw your ‘family members’ to a social media mob,” Damask said. “That’s really what’s gotten me down the most.”
“If there was such a thing as Mormon terrorism and Southern Baptist terrorism, we would have a unit on that, too,” Damask said. “But we don’t, so we don’t spend any time talking about that.”
Damask said the concerned student had emailed him to express that he was offended, and the questions were then posted on the internet.
Comment:
Clear death threats were made both to Prof. Damask and to his family, requiring them, including his grandson and his elderly parents, to move out of fear for their safety. More than a week went by, during which the school officials allowed those death threats – including demands for his home address — to remain on the college’s social media page, allowing the hatred directed at the professor to be spread, giving others the same dangerous ideas, and increasing the mortal threat to the professor and his family. Threats were also made to shoot up, and to burn down, the school. Why didn’t the college officials immediately remove all of the threats on the school’s social media page? Or take down the page altogether? Had they no desire to protect the professor, to prevent his being subjected to an on-line campaign of vilification, hate, and death threats?
Damask said the student never made a formal complaint and school officials sent him a pre-written apology letter for the student and told him to sign it. Damask did not sign the letter and says he has no plans to apologize.
“I’ll never apologize for teaching the content that I am, or the manner in which I’m teaching it,” he said.
Now that a higher authority, the Maricopa County District Board, has declared its support for Professor Damask, and will be investigating the way that SCC administrators handled the whole matter, the tables have turned. The outrageous behavior of administrators, that included their leaving up the Instagram account of SCC for more than a week, letting the death threats against Professor Damask mount up, will now be subject to examination. So will the “prepared letter of apology” that Chris Haines tried to threaten Damask into signing. Her outrageous assault on academic freedom just might end in her being dismissed. That would be a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Dude says
Based on a few talks with their youth, it would appear that they never question the snow job commonly presented to the kafirs. It’s actually what they were taught as the truth: totally Meccan ideals from before the bandit twists of Medina, complete with delusions of grandeur and all.
william carr says
Damask said the student never made a formal complaint and school officials sent him a pre-written apology letter for the student and told him to sign it. Damask did not sign the letter and says he has no plans to apologize.
Give that man a medal. At least one professor in USA who has the courage of his convictions
Jim Austin says
Here, we have Islamophobia in action — only not the way it’s usually portrayed.
The Scottdale Community College administration was so deathly afraid of offending Moslems and provoking Moslem tantrums that they were ready to sacrifice all scholarly standards of evidence and truth to appease Moslems.
Wellington says
36,788 is a figure that supports Damask and reveals the cowards at Scottdale Community College as little totalitarians and groveling ignoramuses.
Peacelover says
…..and it’s already jumped to 36,871 and will {unfortunately} continue to increase.
gravenimage says
Good to hear that so many are supporting Damask!
sentryonthewall says
Their new advertising line should include, “All Muslim Jihadis are welcome here”. Bowing before the altar of the false god Allah, and giving in to the lies of Islam are unacceptable for a supposed learning institution.
mortimer says
The limited multiple choices of Prof. Damask (quoted above) are perhaps the reason he ran afoul of the current political correctness. In academia, generalizations are normally challenged. It is an over-generalization to say ‘Islam teaches x’, because there are different schools (madhab) with a range of different views. An academic should acknowledge that. At the moment, Egypt’s Al Azhar University and the government of Saudi Arabia are trying quietly to back away from strict Wahhabism and water it down.
An open-book, essay-style question would probably not have gotten him into trouble, e.g. ‘Explain the justification given by Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for his use of terrorism’ or this, ‘Explain the justification given for terrorism by the Salafi school of Islam, citing the leaders of this movement.’
If an academic chooses to make bold generalizations, he will likely run into trouble unless he is a neo-Marxist, and then, most of his neo-Marxist colleagues won’t raise an eyebrow.
jay says
Mortiimer, you think because you know the word madhab you have a clue on this. You don’t. ALL madhabs agree on Mohamhead and the Cooran. This is not just salafism, this is not just wahhabism, two other words you seem to have heard of. It is mainstream Islam. Tell you what: Find any Muslim, any at all, who will challenge these core teachings. I mean, really challenge, not wash it over for English-speaking ignoramuses.
gravenimage says
Mortimer, which schools of Islam teach that Muhammed was not a Jihadist? Which schools teach that Jihad terrorism is wrong?
Westman says
Colleges are Rebellion Factories that unite rudderless students with firebrands and leftist faculty to create political mobs. Every society-changing movement, good or evil, seems to climb out of these Rebellion Factories. There has been a college shadow war against America, its founders, and its constitutional principles since the 1960’s.
When Antifa destroys campus property, while administrators do nothing, it speaks volumes about their disdain of America, the rule of law, and the expectation that taxpayers will pay for the repairs in the next state education budget.
Selectively supporting or limiting a tenured professor’s academic freedom, based on administrator’s political biases, is a screaming banner that a political agenda exists. Demanding a professor sign a prepared “confession” is the stuff of communist dictatorships and banana republics.
Maybe it’s time to go online with all coursework that doesn’t require a lab and break up the cabal. Students would have a more balanced social intercourse with the same age group and be more integrated with life in general. It might also trim the wrong-headed notion that getting a college degree means a life without strenuous physical effort.
Putting students all together in the isolated college incubation-tank, for too many, has simply placed debt on their shoulders and unworkable ideas into their minds.
Wellington says
Came to the conclusion long ago, Westman, that the weakest link to the preservation of freedom in America is not what has happened to the Democratic Party, though its decline is certainly bad enough, as evidenced by colossal fools like Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff and AOC (never mind pure malevolent figures like Omar and Tlaib), but rather what has occurred on American college campuses aplenty.
Nowhere is freedom in America more in jeopardy from totalitarian-like control freaks than at so-called institutions of higher learning. Having worked a third of a century in academia, just about the most ridiculous people I have ever come across in my life are academics with way too many degrees—proving that no amount of education is a “barrier” against foolhardiness if common sense, proper knowledge and moral intelligence are absent.
And as someone who sat through innumerable faculty meetings over decades, I vigorously and accurately assert that a greater collection of fools would be hard to find anywhere than at a college faculty meeting. I know this firsthand and I also know that never did even a single faculty meeting do anything to make me a better teacher to the extent that I was an effective teacher. Indeed, by directly rejecting what was said at faculty meetings did this contribute to any efficacy in my pedagogical career.
Unless one has actually functioned in American academia since the 1960’s, you really can’t fully grasp just how destructive the American educational system has become. As bad as many people think it is, it’s even worse.
eduardo odraude says
Except for STEM and perhaps a few other fields that somehow escape the fashionable pc mania.
James Lincoln says
eduardo odraude,
Agree.
Along with STEM, perhaps business/finance…
mgoldberg says
Who would imagine sober sifting and winnowing by an administration in the age of ‘correctness’. One can only hope that this will actually happen as it should- that the professor’s work will not be besmirched, and the
would be ‘jihadists’ who threatened a man and his families life will be properly excoriated and names mentioned so that any actions on their parts will indeed get them thrown out of the college and into jail cells if they dare go after him
Jim says
Well, the Islamic protestor didn’t say the questions were wrong, just that they were “in distaste of Islam.” The protestor knows that they are correct. He/she just doesn’t like them being revealed in the clear to other kafir.
Michael Copeland says
“Distaste” is code for Sharia slander:
“Slander (ghiba) means to mention anything concerning a person that he would dislike…..”
(Manual of Islamic Law, “Reliance of the Traveller”, r2.2)
jay says
Exactly! “Slander” in Islam means casting someone (usually Moohamhead) in an unfavorable light. Hs nothing to do with true or false. Indeed, TRUE statements about MooMad are slander if they are critical OR would otherwise cause a listener/reader to think poorly of the “perfect man”.
gravenimage says
Spot on, Michael.
gravenimage says
*Exactly*. Jim. Truth is no excuse with the “politically correct”.
GreekEmpress says
One good thing that came out of this disgraceful matter was that I learned about a great organization that came to Professor Damask’s aid— Freedom for Individual Rights in Education—(FIRE). I called their office yesterday and thanked them and today mailed them a donation. I hadn’t heard of them previously, but they are definitely worth supporting!
James Lincoln says
Thanks for the tip, GreekEmpress.
keith O says
OUTFREAKINGSTANDING! At long last a win for someone who is will to stand up against the thought police and will not bow down to the politically correct mudslime arse kissers.
Best news I’ve seen in days.
OPOVV says
If you allow the camel to stick his nose into your tent, what can you expect?
The school allowed Muslims to enroll, so why would anyone think that they will behave as civilized human beings?
eduardo odraude says
Chris Haines — I’d love to see this little totalitarian ignoramus fired. So tired of little lefty know-nothing totalitarians.
gravenimage says
Scottsdale Community College Loses Its War On Academic Freedom
……………..
Yes, indeed. The good news is that they have been pressured to apologize to this professor–but I still worry that he will be pressured by these thugs not to teach the truth.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
[1] Wittgenstein’s advice: “whereof we do not know, thereof we should not speak.” Uh, not exactly; he said, “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schweigen.” = “Whereof one cannot *speak*, thereof one must be silent.” (Both formulations are kind of tautological.) See
https://wiki.c2.com/?LittleWittgensteinQuote
[2] “SCC cultivates success when individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds are respected and empowered to contribute. We all benefit by embracing a diversity of voices, viewpoints, and experiences.”
Does the Prophet (pbuh) embrace a diversity of voices, viewpoints, and experiences? Would he make a compliant SCC student? His kafir-hostile attitude stands in opposition to SCC’s policy of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DIE).
Phil Copson says
“…school officials allowed those death threats…. to remain on the college’s social media page, allowing the hatred directed at the professor to be spread, giving others the same dangerous ideas, and increasing the mortal threat to the professor and his family. Threats were also made to shoot up, and to burn down, the school. Why didn’t the college officials immediately remove all of the threats…..Had they no desire to protect the professor, to prevent his being subjected to an on-line campaign of vilification, hate, and death threats?”
———————————————————————————–
In a word – No ! They are essentially Kapos who find it safer to side with the aggressor than to defend their own society which they despise: They glory in their submission to Islam, and were thrilled to parade those death threats: “See? – this is what happens to those who dare oppose our descent into servitude.”
RichardL says
Two heroes: Damask and Gonzeles. I think Gonzeles is even more heroic because he goes in after a mob has formed.
Rob R (Brit stuck in Britainistan) says
“on the social media page of a Muslim comedian.”
Muslim “comedian”.. hahaha.
Hey “liberals” (however may of them are left)
When does it stop? When do the Muslims ever get to stop demanding that everything should be changed or removed to suit their needs?
You have no plan for the future of how supposed “multiculturalism” works, you have not thought anything through, you are a bunch of goons.
AleX says
One would expect a successful lawsuit for libel with subsequent compensations.
With a letter of apology from Chris Haines and immediate dismissal of said from the college board.
And the expulsion of the mohamedan from school.
gravenimage says
It’s more than just one, AleX–this professor received death threats from a slew of Muslims.