Last week I wrote about an NYU professor who wrote a bigoted and ignorant piece on Forbes.com essentially working from the hypothesis that all Muslims are violent. Tunku Varadarajan used the phrase "Going Muslim" to describe incidents like the one at Ft. Hood, going into some detail in describing what he meant by this term:

“This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American–a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood–discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans.”

I wrote a letter to NYU President John Sexton, which I also posted to Daily Gotham, to express disgust at the bigotry of Tunku Varadarajan. I should note that I suggested no specific actions in this regard other than calling on Sexton to reject the kind of bigotry expressed by Varadarajan, and suggesting that it reflects poorly on NYU.  read more »

Seems an NYU professor, Tunku Varadarajan, has written a column where he refers to "Going Muslim," meaning:

“This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American–a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood–discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans.”

This implies that some how being Muslim is inherently violent and anti-American. Daily Kos has an article discussing this bigoted article and recommending writing NYU President John Sexton to express disgust at the bigotry of this NYU professor.

Since I work for the NYU medical center, and since I have published with a wonderful, brilliant and caring Muslim colleague, I feel honor bound to write a personal rejection of Tunku Varadarajan's bigotry. Here is my letter to John Sexton:  read more »