Greg Bolt
Despite the threat of a lawsuit, college officials vow they won’t bow to pressure from outside groups
Lane Community College has been flooded by mostly out-of-state phone calls and e-mails since its decision to cancel a noncredit course on Islam, but LCC officials say they have no intention of reinstating the class.
However, the instructor now has the backing of a conservative legal group that has sent LCC a letter demanding that it reinstate the class or face a federal lawsuit claiming breach of contract and violation of free speech rights. The letter was sent by the American Center for Law & Justice, a group founded by televangelist Pat Robertson that has championed conservative causes.
LCC said it won’t bow to the pressure and maintains that its decision to cancel the class was not influenced by outside groups.
“We really take our responsibility for instruction and creating the learning environment seriously, and that responsibility resides within Lane Community College and it’s not based on outside individuals or entities telling us what to do,” said Sonya Christian, LCC’s vice president for academic and student affairs.
Instead of reinstating the class, the college plans to add a credit course on Islam in spring term taught by UO religious studies professor Frederick Colby, who specializes in early Islamic thought and popular Islam. Christian said LCC also is planning a series of public seminars on Islam during winter term that will be aimed at a general audience.
But that hasn’t stopped the stream of protests pouring into the campus, primarily from partisans of the two national organizations that stirred up the controversy last week. LCC has received more than 1,300 phone calls and hundreds of e-mails on the subject in the week since the issue surfaced.
The college has found itself caught in the middle of what has become a name-calling squabble between two national groups that each accuse the other of being extremists. One of the groups, Act! for America, has mobilized its national network of supporters and urged them to shower the college with protests over the cancellation.
The other group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, arguably started the fracas when it sent LCC an e-mail condemning it for offering the class because the teacher of the class, Barry Sommer, is president of the local chapter of Act! for America. CAIR accuses Act! for America of anti-Islamic bigotry; Act! for America accuses CAIR of being a front for terrorists.
For its part, LCC maintains it already had flagged the Islam class as inappropriate for the community education roster when CAIR fired the first salvo. Christian said the class was canceled out of concern that the subject would be better addressed in a class offered for academic credit and taught by a faculty member with academic credentials in the subject.
“When we made the decision to cancel the class, in all honesty it was because when we looked at it we wanted the topic to be considered within sort of the core academy in a careful, thoughtful way,” she said. “It definitely wasn’t shying away from multiple perspectives. But the treatment of the topic needed to be carefully considered.”
But Sommer said he’s upset at LCC’s actions. He denies being an “Islamophobe,” as the CAIR letter charged, and said his goal was to provide a factual and historical overview of Islam.
“The purpose is not indoctrination,” he said. “The purpose is education.”
In the demand letter, an attorney with the American Center for Law & Justice said LCC created a contractual relationship by approving Sommer’s course proposal and putting it on the community education class schedule. It also accuses LCC of canceling the class because of pressure from CAIR and said that violates Sommer’s free speech rights.
“The law is clear,” the letter states. “LCC must reinstate Mr. Sommer’s course and allow him to teach.”
The fracas started late last week when the college sent an e-mail to Sommer saying it was canceling his class, which was to be called “What Is Islam?” The class was to be offered under LCC’s community education program, courses intended for personal enrichment that earn no academic credit and can be taught by anyone with some knowledge of the subject.
The e-mail did not state a reason for the cancellation, and Sommer said the college still has not contacted him to explain the decision. The move happened about the same time the college received the CAIR letter, but LCC officials insist they already began reviewing the class the previous day after being asked about it by a local television station.
The vast majority of community education classes are “how-to” courses for hobbyists or people who want to know more about cooking, computers, travel, languages or similar subjects. LCC at times offers classes under the general heading of culture, but they are relatively few and only occasionally tread into areas of politics or religion, Christian said.
However, the college did offer a somewhat similar course last year. The class Muslim Women and Culture was on the community education schedule for fall term 2009, but it ended up being canceled.
The college still is reviewing its non-credit class approval process to determine whether Sommer’s course on Islam should have been accepted in the first place, Christian said. But because such classes are offered only for personal enjoyment, the college doesn’t do the kind of rigorous research and planning that go into courses given for academic credit.
A person who wants to teach a community education course at LCC fills out an employment application and a form describing the course and laying out the areas to be covered in each class. The person is interviewed by an LCC staff member before the class is accepted or rejected.
Christian said course proposals regularly are rejected because they don’t fit in with the college’s mission or because there’s no clear need for the course. She said the college makes it clear to all prospective community education teachers that the school reserves the right to cancel any class right up until the first day of class, something she said happens regularly for a variety of reasons.
Also, classes that don’t attract at least a half-dozen students by the week before the term starts are canceled. About 25 to 30 courses are canceled each term because they haven’t attracted enough students, Christian said.
No students had signed up for Sommer’s class, but it was still four weeks until the start of winter term and the class had been open for registration less than three days when it was canceled.
December 11, 2010, Registered Guard
