Pipes letter no defense of freedom
Re: In defense of academic freedom, Mar. 28.

  • Can you really “defend academic freedom” by censoring voices you disagree with? Attempting to vilify Daniel Pipes (without making any substantive case against even his most unreasonable-sounding quotes) in the name of academic freedom is exactly the wrong way to go about helping students get to the truth of the matter.

You’re not giving students credit for being able to make up their own minds. The point is to teach students how to think, not what to think.

Michael Bolduc

  • What Dr. Pipes does is point to examples of the infringement of our democratic liberties being applied by certain interest groups through very ingenuous and subversive means.

Daniel Pipes has an important message. If you truly are “open-minded” then it won’t hurt you to listen to what he has to say.

Elizabeth Coote

  • So in the name of “academic freedom,” you want to stop Daniel Pipes from speaking?

Orwell warned us about you!

Joe Lewelling
Arlington, Virginia

  • I understand University Professors are union members so a certain amount of stupidity is to be expected, but this really does take the cake. The same people who disparage Pipes for his aggressive rhetoric with regards to how to secure peace in the Middle East, are the same Children of Chamberlain who ran around during the 1980’s saying that Ronald Reagan’s aggressive rhetoric would cause a new nuclear war. Instead, that empire came down because of “aggressive, right-wing neo-conservatives” who, despite the bitching and moaning of leftists, refused to co-exist with a slave state in its worst form.

Jim Delinis

  • No doubt a good many of the sheep who signed the letter objecting to Dr. Pipes-an academic who eclipses most of the 80+ signatories in his credentials and record-fall roughly into the same cesspool of self-deception and ignorance as Prof. Ward Churchill in Colorado [who is listed on Campus-Watch’s website].

TW Childs

  • To The Varsity : Are you owned by the Wahabbi?

Chard Jerome

  • As a patriotic Canadian and proud U of T student, I found The Varsity’s left-wing hack job against Mr. Pipes very offensive. Labelling and demonizing people in my opinion makes a mockery of our country’s attitude of tolerance and respect for the diversity of culture and ideas.

The quote that you take from Mr. Pipes’s 1990 National Review article about Europe’s inability to integrate and accept its Muslim immigrants as a equal member of society has proven itself to be quite correct, in light of the barbaric killing of Theo Van Gogh in Holland last winter or France’s ghettoization of Muslims. And for this you tag him as a racist?

If you people really believe in our country’s attitude of tolerance and respect for the diversity of culture and ideas I hope you will go to his lecture on Tuesday and then cast judgment on him. But I have a funny feeling that you people will turn Tuesday’s event into another Concordia.

Jon Mo

No regime change in Québec
Re: Québec students don’t want la revolution, Mar. 28.

I never said that the students in Québec were aiming at a “fairer power distribution,” i.e., a revolution. These words were put into my “mouth” (so to speak) by the editorial staff at The Varsity without my explicit approval (but that’s okay).

Originally, I wrote that perhaps mass mobilization will make a “difference to the classes that hold power…”-a far cry from implying that they’re revolting against the government to replace it with a socialist utopia or anything like that.

I’m very glad that my piece stoked some passions, raised more explanatory notes (merci Alex Bellefleur), and was contextualized by actual reporting on what’s going on in Québec.

Noaman Ali