Students protest anti-Muslim event

WW photo: Joe Piette

PHILADELPHIA — Dozens of students and anti-racist community activists protested outside the Temple University student center on Oct. 7. Speaking inside were right-wingers Pamela Geller, co-founder of Stop Islamization of America, which sponsored the Sept. 11 anti-Muslim rally in New York, and Robert Spencer, contributor to the anti-Muslim blog Jihad Watch.

Temple University Purpose, the organization that hosted Geller and Spencer, was also the target of student protests when, in October 2009, it hosted the blatantly anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

Protesters noted that Geller and Spencer promote a climate of racism and Islamophobia that has led to a New York taxi driver being attacked, the vandalizing of mosques in several states, and a pipe bomb attack at a mosque in Florida. Students challenged the idea that Geller and Spencer’s presentations should be considered educational “discourse” and allowed free speech protection, noting that both are promoted and paid to spread hate speech because it justifies the endless U.S. wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq.