{"id":10082,"date":"2007-10-27T19:32:50","date_gmt":"2007-10-28T01:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=10082"},"modified":"2007-10-27T19:32:50","modified_gmt":"2007-10-28T01:32:50","slug":"yay-my-alma-mater-doesnt-suck-dan-collins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=10082","title":{"rendered":"Yay! My Alma Mater Doesn't Suck [Dan Collins]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, Joe Malchow brings good news on two fronts. First, the Trustees have asked that the Association of Alumni suit brought against them for attempting to abrogate the College’s longstanding rules about election of board members be dropped<\/a>, and promised that in return they will not undertake to stack the Board. This is a victory for the College, and for alumni rights generally.<\/p>\n

Second, he has this to say about Robert Spencer’s Islamofascism Awareness Week address<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Yesterday evening, in the culmination of Dartmouth\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s Islamofascism Awareness Week, Robert Spencer of JihadWatch.org addressed an assembly of students, faculty, and townsfolk in historic Dartmouth Hall Room 105. Mr. Spencer\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s speech and the question session which followed\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dwhich were met with tremendous teeth gnashing in their run-up this whole week\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dwere remarkably subdued and civil. Mr. Spencer\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s security man told me afterwards that Dartmouth was by lengths the most civil crowd, its politesse far exceeding that of Brown, where Mr. Spencer spoke the evening before.
\nIn the event, Mr. Spencer\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s entire speech was not a detailed analysis of Islamic terrorism but rather, in essence, a justification for his speech. If it sounds a bit off that an invited speaker should spend his allotted duration justifying his invitation, recall that Islamofascism Awareness Week is engaged in one narrow endeavor, and that is to remind addled collegians that indeed there exist such things as Islamofascists, and they have workable ideas about wiping out whole societies. Mr. Spencer seems to have succeeded on this point, with this crowd.
\nAs has become the tradition with heterodox speakers at Dartmouth, Economics Professor Meir Kohn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dwhose class is widely and incessantly hailed as simply one of the best at the College\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dgave the speaker a gracious, witty introduction. For your enjoyment I reprint it below.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Congratulations for not sucking, ladies and gentlemen. I’m proud of you for not being jackasses, like the students, faculty and administrations of some other institutions I could name.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Good evening. My name is Meir Kohn and I am a professor in the Economics Department.
\nI seem to be the designated introducer of politically-incorrect speakers. I only wish I had more opportunities!
\nThe last occasion was almost three years ago when I had the honor of introducing Daniel Pipes.
\nTonight, it is my honor to introduce Robert Spencer.
\nBefore I do so, however, I would like to say a few words about Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, of which this evening\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s talk is the keynote event.
\nI won\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t say anything about Islamo-Fascism: I leave that in the capable hands of Mr. Spencer. It is the \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cAwareness\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d part that I wish to address.
\nWhy is an Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week necessary?
\nAwareness of what? I am quite sure that you are all aware of Islamo-Fascism, whatever you may prefer to call it. America tried for a long time to ignore the threat of Islamo-Fascism, but 9\/11 was pretty successful in getting our attention. So that isn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t really it.
\nSo this initiative isn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t about raising awareness of Islamo-Fascism so much as it about raising awareness of the silence about Islamo-Fascism on American campuses. Indeed, students at Dartmouth won\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t hear much about Islamo-Fascism from their professors or from officially-invited speakers.
\nA professor of middle east studies at Dartmouth quoted in yesterday\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s D, sniffed that he had never heard the term used in \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cacademic circles.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d Exactly!<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00cb\u0153Academic circles\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2, in case you hadn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t noticed, are overwhelmingly dominated by the left. The culture of the academic left is a kind of watered-down Marxism.
\nIt has been said that Marxism survives today in only three places: North Korea, Cuba, and among the faculty of American universities.
\nThe view of Islamo-Fascism in leftist \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00cb\u0153academic circles\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 is, to put it delicately, ambivalent.
\nA movement that is anti-American and anti-capitalist can\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t be all bad.<\/p>\n

Of course, they do kill a lot of people, and they have a less than liberated attitude to women and gays.
\nSo it is a little awkward to actually come out and endorse them.
\nSo the compromise is a neutral silence.
\nThe goal of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is to challenge this silence and to raise your awareness of it. It is easy to be unaware of a silence.
\nOur country, indeed our civilization, is locked in a life and death struggle with a poisonous ideology. It is not only a war of bombs and bullets but also a war of ideas. One of the fronts in that war is the American campus. The silence must be broken.
\nThat brings me to tonight\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s speaker.
\nRobert Spencer is one of a select group of courageous and dedicated scholars\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dmostly outside \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00cb\u0153academic circles\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dlaboring to educate Americans about the danger we face from radical Islam.
\nOthers include Daniel Pipes, Martin Kramer, Michael Ledeen, and David Horowitz (the organizer of I-F A W).<\/p>\n

Mr. Spencer has spent the last 20 years studying Islamic theology, law, and history.
\nHe is currently the direct of Jihad Watch, a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of two New York Times bestsellers on Islamic jihad\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cThe Truth About Muhammad\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d and The \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cPolitically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d. He has written seven books, ten monographs, and well over two hundred articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism.
\nBefore I turn the podium over to Mr. Spencer, I would like to thank the students responsible for bringing him to Dartmouth\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dHarrison Sonntag, Harrison Davies, and Alexandra Lippman.
\nThey have shown great courage and steadfastness in the face of considerable hostility. They make me proud to be at Dartmouth.
\nNow please join me in welcoming Robert Spencer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, Joe Malchow brings good news on two fronts. First, the Trustees have asked that the Association of Alumni suit brought against them for attempting to abrogate the College’s longstanding rules about election of board members be dropped, and promised that in return they will not undertake to stack the Board. This is a victory for the College, and for alumni rights generally. Second, he has this to say about<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":587,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/587"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}