We have already shown that the Higher Education Establishment is going full court press in its push for open immigration. In addition to columns by “public intellectuals” (i. e., academics who publish their views), we now have studies that allegedly show the benefits of unchecked immigration, that most official studies only put a price tag to—despite their best efforts to show a benefit.

For example, the University of Utah’s Institute of Public and International Affairs recently weighed in with its take on the issue. “The institute, founded in 2005, has had an impressive first year,” Continuum, the university magazine reports. “Interdisciplinary research teams have been investigating international migration networks and health, globalization and justice, failure of ‘the developmental state’ and globalization, and the Utah-Mexico connection.”

“An IPIA research project, which identified the net contributions made by Mexico and Mexican Americans to the economy of Utah, received considerable public attention and resulted in personal thanks from Mexico’s then-President Vicente Fox.”

Islamic Studies for Real

While many colleges purport to offer Middle East Studies courses, few of the professors holding forth on the subject can offer any real insight into the region. A notable exception is Bernard Lewis.

Lewis, a professor emeritus at Princeton, held forth on the history of Islam on a Hillsdale College cruise through the British Isles. Drawing heavily on the history of the French Revolution, he showed that, historically, at least until the 20th Century, Islam was both more diffuse and democratic than we know it to be in its present incarnation.

“The idea of equality posed no great problem,” Lewis said. “Equality is very basic in Islamic belief: All true believers are equal.”

“Of course, that still leaves three ‘inferior’ categories of people—slaves, unbelievers and women.” Nevertheless, to a degree, the top down management style we associate with Islam is mostly a European construct adopted in the Middle East, and from France, no less.

“Here, things are not as in France where the king is sole master and does as he pleases,” the French ambassador wrote from Turkey in 1786. “Here the Sultan has to consult.” According to Lewis, the sultan consulted “with the former holders of high offices, with the leaders of various groups and so on.”

In the modern era, another European power has stumbled badly in its understanding of Islam, Lewis indicated. Lewis recounted the rather surprising turn of events that transpired when Turks in Germany attempted to obtain instruction in the faith while attending German schools.

“The Turks said that they had excellent textbooks, which are used in Turkey and Turkish schools, but the German officials said no, those are government-produced textbooks; under the principle of separation of church and state, these Muslims had to produce their own,” Lewis relates. “As a result, whereas in Turkish schools in Turkey, students get a modern, moderate version of Islam, in German schools, in general, they get the full Wahhabi blast.”

“The last time I looked, twelve Turks have been arrested as members of Al-Qaeda—all twelve of them born and educated in Germany.”

****Academic

How does a retired military officer get an academic berth when the Reserve Officers Training Corps cannot? By running for the Democratic nomination for president, apparently. “Gen. Wesley K. Clark, former supreme allied commander of NATO, will join the Burkle Center for International Relations in UCLA’s International Institute this fall as a senior fellow,” the university announced in a press release.

“Clark will teach seminars, publish papers through the Burkle Center and host an annual conference on national security.”General Clark served as NATO commander during the 1999 Kosovo conflict in what was formerly Yugoslavia. His service in Kosovo earned him the presidential medal of freedom bestowed by then-President Clinton.

“Of all the whoppers told by former President Clinton in his Chris Wallace interview, perhaps the most outrageous was his claim that he was involved in ‘trying to stop a genocide in Kosovo…,’” media analyst Cliff Kincaid notes. “In fact, Clinton’s bombing of the former Yugoslavia killed more people than died in this ‘genocide.’”

“And his policy benefited Osama bin Laden and the global Jihad.” Kincaid serves as a writer and editor at Accuracy in Media.

Collegial Faculty Lounges

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently found that young college professors prize collegiality above all else in their working environments. This may not be as innocuous as it sounds.

We are increasingly finding that “a lack of collegiality” is the excuse used by administrators for denying promotions to conservative college professors with “otherwise” sterling qualifications.

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.

Knight Moves

University officials continue to demonstrate hostility towards Catholicism that borders on persecution. We have posted stories on the failure of college administrators to take action when student newspapers publish sacrilegious cartoons. Their declarations of support for freedom of the press would be more believable if they took the same approach towards sketches that offend Islamic and Gay Rights groups.

Add to the mix the University of Wisconsin’s attempt to ban the Knights of Columbus. The Catholic fraternity is already invisible enough on cutting-edge campuses loosely affiliated with the Church, such as Georgetown’s.

“Although the Knights have been a recognized student group at the University of Wisconsin’s main campus in Madison since 1976, the school this summer decided to drop recognition of the group after concluding that their membership requirements—one must be a Catholic male over age 18—violate federal, state, city, and university nondiscrimination laws and policies,” Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council reports. “But the U.S. Supreme Court long ago decided that the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and free association also include the right of organizations to exclude those who disagree with their message or violate their membership standards.”

“As recently as July (in a case in which FRC filed a friend-of-the-court brief), the U.S. 7th Circuit Court ruled in a similar case in favor of the Christian Legal Society against Southern Illinois University School of Law.”

Peter Goes to John School

Peter Dawson, a part-time professor at the George Washington University Law School got some legal training he had not bargained for but hopefully he will not try to pass it on to his students. Dawson, who also serves as a corporal on the University Police Department, was arrested for soliciting sex.

“Dawson’s case was dismissed Friday, but his arrest will remain on his record, said Associate Judge John Mott of the D.C. Superior Court, who presided over Dawson’s hearing,” Brandon Butler and Kaitlyn Jahrling reported in the GW Hatchet on September 5th. “Mott is also a part-time professor at GW Law School.”

“To have the case dismissed, Dawson paid a $300 fee and attended an eight-hour class at the U.S. Attorney’s John School, a diversion program that is ‘designed to reduce recidivism among those arrested for solicitation,’ according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office Web site.”

Crash Course

We should point out that one of DC’s real cops, Inspector Andy Solberg, has to undergo sensitivity training because he said after a murder in tony Georgetown that the city’s blacks rarely go there. Washington, D.C. police chief Charles H. Ramsey “also instructed Solberg to create a lesson plan for the police academy based on the Oscar-winning 2005 movie ‘Crash,’ in which issues of class, race, crime and police conduct collide in Los Angeles,” Allison Klein reported in the Washington Post on July 25th. “Solberg said Ramsey gave him the task because Solberg is a former D.C. public schools teacher.”

“The community meeting came after the killing of British citizen Alan Senitt, 27, whose throat was slashed during a robbery in Georgetown,” Klein reported.”

“ Police quickly arrested four people.”

“Senitt was white,” Klein wrote, “and the four suspects are black.”

Textbook Publishers Play Hardball

Apparently, textbook publishers now want to be spared the labor of proving that their offerings are accurate. “Eric Schlosser, the anti-fast food crusader who wrote Fast Food Nation, has a new ‘children’s book’ out on the same subject, titled Chew on This, Joseph Bast of the Heartland Institute reports. “ I put ‘children’s book’ in quotation marks because while this book has pictures and simplifies complicated issues, it delivers a mostly grown-up message about how evil big corporations exploit farmers, hide the harmful health effects of their products, pay their employees too little, put profits before people … well, you know the litany.”

“Heartland Science Director Jay Lehr wrote a review of Chew on This pointing out its flaws and chastising Schlosser for trying to change public policy by targeting kids.” But the Institute’s efforts did not advance the debate. That’s because the publisher of the textbook tried to intimidate the watchdog group into silence.

“Houghton Mifflin, Schlosser’s publisher and one of the largest book publishers in the world, hired an outside public relations firm to investigate Heartland’s history and funding and to warn editors against publishing or reporting what we might say,” Bast recounts. “Unbelievable, you say?”

“In an interview with Bloomberg LLC, Schlosser accused Heartland of being an “Astroturf” organization and a “fake grassroots organization.”

“Heartland was founded by a group of small business owners 22 years ago and has 1,400 donors,” Bast notes. “What’s “fake” about that?”

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.