In
Defense of the Constitution
Analysis
and Commentary
011/04
March
25, 2004 - College Students
Win
College Students Win
Riad Saloojee, The executive director of CAIR-CAN (Council
on American Islamic Relations,
Soloojee had been invited by the Rensselaer College MSA
(Muslim Students Association) to speak on February 27th and 28th
as part of “Islam Awareness Week.”
Students of the Rensselaer
College Republicans
were key players in whipping up opposition to the speech once they learned
of the CAIR connection.
On Thursday, February 20th, the college
Republicans discovered that the Rensselaer Muslim Student Association
had invited a representative of CAIR
to speak as part of "Islam Awareness Week". The two lectures were to
be held at 6pm, Feb. 27th, and 1pm, Feb 28th.
The Rensselaer
Republicans had already been looking into CAIR’s
involvement with the campus.
The college Republicans were
contacted by two officers of the MSA who were interested in hearing their
arguments against CAIR. From sources within the
MSA, they knew that some members of the MSA were having misgivings about
CAIR and didn’t want Soloojee on campus. A meeting was held on 23 February, just 96 hours before
the start of the protest.
During the special meeting,
the MSA representative’s expressed surprise at the accusations made against
CAIR by the Republicans. The MSA officers asked
for time to do their own investigation of CAIR and called for a cancellation
of the planned protest in exchange for a “forum” at a later date. The Republicans stood firm however, and gave the MSA 24
hours to either cancel the CAIR speaker or be faced with a large protest.
The MSA officers were not happy with the 24 hour ultimatum,
but were reminded that the Republicans were blindsided by the last minute
scheduling of Soloojee and had had little time
to react to the controversial speaker.
The end result? The MSA sent the Republicans an e-mail saying that Soloojee would not be attending the event “due
to some personal reasons.”
ACAIR
is pleased to answer
any questions from the public and press.
Your
comments, suggestions and tips are appreciated and all e-mail is read.
You
may request our press releases by writing:
Andrew
Whitehead
ACAIR
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
ADVISORY:
Subscribers
are warned that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) may contact your employer
if CAIR believes you are using a work address to receive any material that
CAIR believes may be offensive.
CAIR
has been known to shame employers into firing employees CAIR finds disagreeable.
For that reason, we strongly suggest that corporate e-mail users NOT use
a corporate e-mail account/address when communicating with ACAIR.
We
make every reasonable effort to protect our mailing list, but we cannot
guarantee confidentiality. ACAIR
does
not share, loan, sell, rent or otherwise publicize our mailing list. We
respect your privacy!
TIPS:
All persons are invited to submit tips and leads. ACAIR
will acknowledge receipt of all tips/leads, but we will NOT acknowledge
the source of ANY tip or lead in our Press Releases or on our web site.
Exceptions
are made for leading media personalities at the discretion of ACAIR
and
only on request of the person(s) submitting the tip or lead.