This from Pace University in New York City.

A paperback copy of the Koran was tossed into a toilet on the lower Manhattan campus of Pace University - the latest in a spate of bias incidents upsetting students and administrators at the college, officials said yesterday.

The NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the vandalism of the Koran, and the university's private security also is probing the incident, sources said.
"A Koran thrown into the toilet? I am hurt, not just as a Muslim but as a human being," said Zeina Berjaoui, 20, president of Pace's Muslim Student Association.

In the past two weeks, vandals also scrawled a swastika and .anti-black slurs on the same bathroom wall at Pace's campus near City Hall. Someone also sprayed the N-word onto a car parked at the school's Westchester County campus, cops and university sources said.

"One of our university's greatest strengths is its diversity," Pace President David Caputo wrote in a letter describing the incidents. "When speech is hurtful towards a class of people or incites violence, we must condemn it and take measures to stop it."

The copy of the Koran had been taken from the university .library before being defaced Sept. 21. It turned up in the toilet approximately two weeks ago. Today, cops will quiz the student who last withdrew the book, police sources said.

Well maybe there is a crime here – someone stole the book from the library.

But apart from the theft, how exactly does the act of placing a Koran in a toilet constitute any sort of crime? Indeed, is it not like flag burning, expressive conduct that communicates a point of view -- perhaps “Islam is a bunch of shit.” Would a Bible in a toilet elicit a similar response from the University? How about an American flag? An Israeli flag?

I find the statement that the university wishes to “take measures to stop” speech that is “hurtful to a class of people” particularly chilling. Does this mean that expression of the “wrong” views on abortion, homosexuality, religion, or race are prohibited at Pace University? Will speech that targets conservatives, Christians, Jews, or white people be stopped by the University, or will the offended students and faculty members be told that they need to butch up and accept the right of their antagonists to speak out? Just wondering – but pretty sure about the answer.

Posted by: Greg at 12:08 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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