“I was going to discuss basically all aspects of the history of Islam, from the good, from the bad,” Sommer said.
Lane Community College has canceled a class called “What is Islam?” that was going to be offered as a non-credit class next month and be taught by Sommer.
“Barry, I am writing to inform you that your class, What is Islam?”, scheduled for winter term has been canceled,” Sommer read from the e-mail notice he received on Friday.
Why? Sommer said he wasn’t given a reason, but he speculated.
“I believe it was because of pressure from the Council on American-Islamic Relations,” he said.
In fact, in a letter to LCC President Mary Spilde, CAIR’s Washington state executive director Arsalan Buhkari wrote “unless the goal of this course is to promote anti-Muslim bigotry, Lane Community College should replace Mr. Sommer with someone who will offer students a balanced and objective analysis of the subject matter.
Buhkari said on Monday that Sommer is not qualified to teach the course and has connections to a group called “Act for America.” CAIR calls “Act for America” an anti-Muslim hate group.
“This person has no known, you know, education in Islam or about Muslims,” said Arsalan Buhkari, who is based in Seattle for CAIR, “and he has a very clearly demonstrated biased view of Muslims.”
KVAL News asked Sommer if he is anti-Islamic, as the CAIR group alleges?
“That’s kind of a loaded question,” he said. “Let me say this: I have absolutely nothing against Muslims, but I have a problem on how Islam is defined today by its leaders.”
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