From the North Carolina News & Observer, with thanks to reader DG for pointing this out:
The former Enloe High School history teacher who invited a Christian evangelist to speak to his students is not taking his reprimand quietly.
Social studies teacher Robert Escamilla said the Wake County school system squelched free speech and academic freedom — and he is finding a growing group of supporters.
In the days since he was reassigned to Mary E. Phillips High School, 100 of his former students have signed a petition to have him reinstated at Enloe. The chairwoman of the social studies department at Enloe wrote a forceful letter to the school board calling him a “sacrificial lamb.” A Web site (http://www.freeesco.com) is being built and bank account has been set up to help with his legal bills.
Escamilla maintains he did nothing wrong when he invited Kamil Solomon, an Egyptian-born Christian who lives in Raleigh, to speak to 300 or so Enloe students about his persecution at the hands of the Egyptian government. On the contrary, Escamilla said, he thought the visit by the evangelist was an educational exercise that exposed his students to different opinions and challenged them to form their own views.
The question is this, he said: “Are we going to be open to a variety of different perspectives versus are we going to limit and censor and shut down the educational experience and environment to keep out people with certain views?”
Escamilla, who readily avows his own Christian faith, acknowledges that Solomon was not neutral toward Muslims. But he insists that his guest did not denigrate Islam or attempt to convert students to Christianity during the visit.
The school system sees it differently. In a sharply worded release last month, Wake County Schools Superintendent Del Burns said Solomon’s primary message was to convey his anti-Muslim and pro-Christian views. Burns has apologized to Muslims for Solomon’s visit. And he issued new guidelines that require guest speakers to sign forms saying they will not denigrate any culture, race, gender, national origin or religion.
School officials won’t talk further about Escamilla’s case, which they view as a personnel matter.
But experts on teaching religion in the public school said Escamilla’s appeal on the basis of academic freedom or free speech is weak.
“Public school teachers are subject to the establishment clause of the First Amendment which is designed to ensure that government remains neutral” when it comes to religion, said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the nonprofit First Amendment Center in Washington and a leading expert on teaching religion in the public schools. “That draws lines on their exercise of free speech.”
Even if Escamilla didn’t personally denigrate Islam, said Haynes, he bears responsibility for not stopping his guest speaker.
The only reason this is considered “wrong” is because we haven’t yet taken the steps to outlaw Islam. We haven’t even had the moral integrity to label it a threat to our way of life or the source of 99.9% of the world’s terror. That will all change in our lifetimes, but at what cost? We have so many fools and dhimmis willing to defend evil under the guise of our own laws; a sad state of affairs.
“The teacher is the gatekeeper making sure the First Amendment is upheld and the student’s religious liberty protected,” Haynes said, adding that schools are not an open forum, such as a public park. Teachers and guest speakers must follow guidelines.
To Escamilla’s supporters, the distinctions seem unfair.
“Free speech is what schools should be doing,” said Thomas Dresser, the father of one of Escamilla’s former students and a supporter. “It’s not right that different groups be treated differently.”
Not to mention the fact that the exact opposite is happening with impunity across the United States and Canada. Reports come in almost weekly now of Islam being taught in the school system or paraded in full-costume, literally, for our kids to emulate and even participate in; to hope that our kids find sympathy for a way of life that is the antithesis of what it means to be a free American, and especially to be a free woman in America. Teachers and school officials that condone these kinds of behaviors are the ones that should be fired!
Where are the outcries except on blogs like this? Most Americans aren’t even aware of the danger yet, so there is no opportunity for anger. Hush, don’t talk about it. Someone might call you a racist.
So, call me a racist if that’s the only argument available. I know better. And I’ll know the person that calls me a racist is either a fool or a traitor.
What Solomon said
The facts of the controversy are not disputed. At the suggestion of a student who had heard Solomon speak at her church, Escamilla invited the evangelist to make a presentation to his Bible in History class — an elective — to talk about the impact the Bible has had on him.
Escamilla’s supervisor, social studies chairwoman Marian J. Johnson, approved the visit and brought her classes to hear Solomon, as did two English teachers.
On Feb. 15, Solomon gave eight talks to eight groups of students. On a video that Escamilla recorded of one of those talks, Solomon is seen waving a copy of the Quran and denouncing Islam as a religion of violence.
“I want you to be aware of these deceits,” Solomon says in the video. “A Muslim may say to you, ‘Islam is a religion of peace.’ It’s not true. Don’t believe it.”
At the end of each session, Solomon distributed pamphlets. One called the Prophet Muhammad a “criminal,” “demon possessed” and “inspired by Satan.” Another was titled “Do Not Marry A Muslim Man.”
Fact: Muhammad claimed to have been spoken to by Satan on at least one occasion. Whether he lied about that is irrelevant.
Fact: Islam is not a religion of peace; it is a militant, theocratic ideology bent on world domination.
Agreed: I would tell any woman I know not to marry a Muslim man, and I have done so. Why? If that isn’t obvious, you need to spend a few days reading the Anvil and watching the many videos available. If that’s still not enough, go to any bookstore, flip open a Koran to chapter 3, “Women”, and begin reading.
Time and again I have posted stories here detailing how Islam is being thrust upon our school children, and yet this teacher is fired for giving our kids dangerous truth. Do you see where this is going to lead? We live in a time when good is evil and evil is good. The Islamists must be grinning ear to ear.
Read the rest of this story here.
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As long as the US puts up with convoluted thinking mandating “fairness to all”, Islam is going to move right in and take over everything! There will never be any thing whatsoever but Islam and whatever horrors that cult decrees “acceptable”. Where is the American backbone? Where is the American Spirit? Where is just plain common sense?!
Indeed, up is down. In the meantime, ICE (Islamic Council on Education) is ‘consulting’ with all the textbook publishers and are busily whitewashing Islam for all our public schools. And King George and Clueless Condi think we need lots more Muslim student exchanges to fill our universities with a fifth column. While liberals that despise America have reached the heights of all Ivy universities and even secondary universities, our State Dept. is filled with the spawn brainwashed in these corrupted universities. It is just too conspiratorial, but sadly the facts are there.
Indeed. What has happened to ‘common sense’ in America. I just watched video tape of a non-Arab, non-Muslim and former U.S. Secret Service agent — now mother of a toddler — being hassled by airport security with her baby in a stroller because of a sippy cup. This is how absurd things have become.