Apparently, Dr. Murray Haar, chairperson of the Religion, Philosophy, and Classics Departments at Augustana College in South Dakota, is trying to pressure colleges to cancel my upcoming lectures on Israel, Palestine, and America.
He is also, it appears, trying to pressure the media not to cover them.
It’s so sad to see academics without academic principles.
Those who suffer most are the students who should be learning from scholars committed to learning, knowledge, and free academic inquiry.
It’s truly unfortunate when their professors are partisans who attempt to abuse their power, and whose actions demonstrate a profound lack of principle.
According to his departmental profile, Dr. Haar “teaches courses dealing with the holocaust, Judaism and Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, religion, violence, courage, and evil. He also teaches Hebrew and Jewish philosophy. Haar has taken students to Israel and India. He has published a number of articles and given a variety of papers dealing with Israel and the holocaust.”
It appears that Prof. Haar has succeeded in preventing a lecture by me at Augustana College. I suspect he worries that in a “free marketplace of ideas,” the facts I present would trump the fallacies he prefers.
I hope Augustana students will learn of my other presentations in South Dakota and attend one. I will welcome their presence, their courage in listening to a presentation on a topic of great importance, their challenging questions, and their own independent research into the subject.
Perhaps they will be able to teach Dr. Haar that’s what college is supposed to be about.
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My schedule will be posted on the If Americans Knew calendar.