Critics: N.C. lawmakers threatening university's academic freedom

By The Associated Press

08.09.02

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RALEIGH, N.C. — Critics of a state House committee decision to bar the use of public funds for a University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill reading assignment on the Quran said the move could threaten academic freedom and accreditation.

"I suppose evolution will be next," said Sue Estroff, a social medicine professor and chairwoman of UNC's faculty. "I can see them saying we have to teach creationism and the rest of it. To say it isn't an assault on academic freedom is ludicrous."

The House Appropriations Committee voted Aug. 7 to bar the university from using public funds for the assignment unless it gives equal time to "all known religions." The move came as the committee worked to put together a $14.3 billion state budget.

The book, Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells, is required reading for about 4,200 incoming freshmen and transfer students this month.

New students may decline to read the book and write essays explaining their decision. Students are scheduled to discuss the book Aug. 19 in 180 small-group discussions.

Three unidentified incoming university freshmen and a conservative Christian organization filed a federal lawsuit last month contending the university infringed upon their rights to religious freedom. Opening arguments are scheduled for Aug. 15 in Greensboro, said Joe Glover, president of the Virginia-based Family Policy Network.

State Rep. Gene Arnold, R-Nash County, called the UNC requirement "extraordinarily arrogant" due to anti-Arabic sentiment after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"I think the chancellor is totally, completely out of step with what people of North Carolina want and expect out of its university," he said.

Retired UNC president William C. Friday compared the House measure to the Speaker Ban Law, enacted by the Legislature in 1963 to bar communists from speaking on state campuses.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools criticized that measure as a threat to academic freedom, and considered revoking the accreditation of North Carolina's state-supported universities.

Friday and others persuaded the association to renew the accreditations in 1965, but the ban lingered as a divisive issue. In 1968, a federal court declared the Speaker Ban Law unconstitutional.

Friday said yesterday that he hoped the Legislature would remove the House reading ban before adopting the budget, "because the university would suffer greatly from another lengthy, costly battle over accreditation that would surely ensue."

State Sen. Howard Lee, a Chapel Hill Democrat and vice chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said it's unclear whether the measure would be approved in the Senate.

"The question isn't whether it's right or wrong for the university to offer it," Lee said. "To me, it's whether the Legislature should micro-manage the university system. I think it's a poor idea to go down that road."

Joseph Farrell, a longtime UNC professor of public law and policy who also serves as secretary of the Faculty Council, called the House measure "nothing more than political theater."

"The whole thing will be moot," he said. "We're into the first week of September before we have a budget."

Meanwhile, the author of the book at issue, Michael Sells, a comparative religions professor at Haverford College, defended his book in an essay published yesterday in The Washington Post.

He said most Muslims interpret verses cited in the Quran that demand slaying the unfaithful in the context of early war between Muhammad's followers and their opponents.

Muslims "no more expect to apply them to their contemporary non-Muslim friends and neighbors than most Christians and Jews consider themselves commanded by God, like the Biblical Joshua, to exterminate the infidels," Sells wrote.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations called the dispute an example that "anti-Muslim rhetoric from commentators, religious leaders and now elected officials is getting out of hand and is poisoning the minds of many ordinary Americans."

Update

University can go ahead with discussion of book about Quran
Federal judge refuses to grant temporary restraining order to halt reading assignment.  08.16.02

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N.C. lawmakers condemn university reading assignment
House budget panel votes 64-10 to bar use of public funds to teach about Islam unless school gives equal time to 'all known religions.'  08.08.02