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Absurd University uproar

Sunday August 25, 2002

Incoming freshmen at the University of North Carolina are asked each summer to read a book for common discussion, to sharpen their minds about important public topics. One summer it was a book on poverty in a Chicago housing project. Another, it was a book on the Civil War.

This summer, focusing on ramifications of Muslim terrorism, the school asked freshmen to read a neutral, introductory book about Islam and the Koran. But all hell broke loose. The New York Times commented:

"The outrage this produced in some Christian fundamentalists and ham-handed legislators was such that you would have thought the students had been assigned a work of pornography."

A conservative church group filed two federal court actions in a futile attempt to halt what the group called "forced Islamic indoctrination."

Demagogues in the North Carolina legislature voted to shut off the university’s funding unless it gives equal classroom time to "all known religions." What absurdity. Do the politicos expect students simultaneously to read books about Aztec human sacrifice, Wicca witchery, Scientology, Zeus on Mount Olympus and such "known religions"? The legislators were trying to ensure that Christianity is taught, but they opened the door for chaos.

Luckily, federal judges — led by Charleston’s Robert B. King, now on the 4th Circuit bench at Richmond — rejected the fundamentalist petition, so the book discussions are proceeding as planned. As for the North Carolina legislature, we hope that sensible members halt the threat to shut off funds.

Why is it that some politicians behave absurdly when religious issues arise? Are they trying to milk votes out of public prejudice?

We agree with The Washington Post, which blamed the firestorm on "the apparently widespread sense that the Koran is the enemy’s text, the study of which undermines American resolve and constitutes a slight to ‘our’ values."

University students should learn about all aspects of the world — especially an aspect as significant as Islam has become.

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