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E-PrinceA planned Wednesday talk by controversial Egyptian-American activist Nonie Darwish was cancelled Tuesday evening when both of the event’s sponsors, Tigers for Israel (TFI) and the American Whig-Cliosophic Society, withdrew their sponsorship, citing her criticism of Islam.
Darwish, a ...
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They didn't know she was radically anti-Islam? Did they even read their own posters? The cancellation was to prevent a large-scale protest.
Kids, say no to drugs.
I think TFI should be commended for acknowledging the mistake of inviting Darwish to campus. This especially goes for Lerner and Mensch who unfortunately placed too much trust in Grinberg without realizing his more right-wing views.
TFI is used to facing protests from PCP and would certainly not have canceled this event for that reason. With the exception of Grinberg, it appears that TFI was truthfully concerned about offending Muslim students.
This is really bad etiquette. You should research people's views before you invite them to come give a speech about them. And once you've invited them, you need to follow through.
It is extremely discourteous that TFI had her plan on coming here and then the DAY of the event told her she couldn't come. To make it worse, they've been bashing her ever since to justify their decision. Even if her views are bigoted, TFI owes this woman an apology.
As a Muslim student, I accept the apologizes of TFI, although it is a lesson to them that they, along with all other student organizations, should do research on a speaker before inviting them.
As for Grinberg, if Ahmadinejad was to come to Princeton, then how would you feel?
Turki al Faisal is feted by the University president, and Darwish is banned. Princeton is now an official dhimmi outpost of Islam, having embraced Islamic parameters of acceptable speech.
Great article. I am proud of the ways that both communities communicated and worked together on this. Sohaib Sultan and Julie Roth along with the Addie exhibited great leadership and role modeling of why dialogue and open relationships are so important. I hope this will continue on the student level.
I fail to understand how Darwish's views are grounds for rescinding the invitation. She would hardly be the only religious person on campus who believes that another religion's belief system is wrong...
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/imam_...
I think that it was a big mistake to withdraw the invitation. As said in the article, we should not be making a decision about someone before even hearing them speak. Controversial speakers are very common here at Princeton, and if we suddenly cancelled all of their lectures, we really would live in the Orange Bubble everyone says we live in.
Inviting someone to come does not mean you endorse what they are trying to say. You are presenting different views on important world issues. I understand that Muslim students may have found her presence on campus offensive, but what about students who find it offensive that there is a pro-choice movement on campus because they are strictly anti-abortion. We should not remove ourselves from looking at several sides of different issues even if we do not agree with them. This would be putting our head in the sand.
As for the quote “Nonie Darwish is to Arabs and Muslims what Ku Klux Klan members, skinheads and neo-Nazis are to other minorities, and we decided that the role of her talk in the logical, intellectual discourse espoused by Princeton University needed to be questioned,” I think this is very extreme. Darwish was a Muslim before and what she talks about is partly from personal experience. People in the KKK weren't black -- they just hate blacks. They aren't coming from personal experience of being black, they are a racist, violent group stemming from white supremacy beliefs. This distinction is important to make, and it is not fair to Darwish to compare her to these hateful groups.
Also -- it's just bad etiquette to not do your homework and then the day of the lecture, cancel. Shame on you.