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.

I received a variety of responses to my piece on Daily Gotham. Most were from Muslim members of the NYU community who expressed appreciation for my words, particularly since they came from a non-Muslim. But a member of the NYU Office of Public Affairs also read my piece and responded. I would like to post the response from NYU President Sexton that was sent to me by the NYU Office of Public Affairs:

"In a university, we often find ourselves in situations in which more than one principle is at stake.

"A core principle at any institution worthy of the name 'university' is academic freedom. For a university to be a meaningful and successful home to those that advance the frontiers of human knowledge, its scholars must be permitted to pursue ideas -- sometimes provocative ideas, sometimes difficult ideas that we find challenging to listen to -- free from persecution. This is not a limitless freedom, but it is a broad one. Because of it, every institution confronts from time-to-time the painful companion of academic freedom: the expression of an idea that is widely offensive. Public calls for institutions to punish faculty officially for expressing such ideas are all too common, and are deeply regrettable -- were we to do so, we would sacrifice what may be our greatest strength and discourage those who would think originally and challenge the conventional.

"In this University, we also believe in the value of a civil discourse, a care for how and when and where we express ideas, because we know our ideas are not exchanged in a vacuum. We are a community of scholars, and ideas are formulated and exchanged by real people who are entitled to be treated in a decent and dignified fashion.

"Another key principle is that ideas and their proponents must be open to intellectual challenge and testing -- opposing ideas have an equal entitlement to be aired. But let's be clear, this is not a form of relativism; in fact, it is just the reverse -- the premise is that the superior idea will prevail.

"So where do we find ourselves today? A journalist and NYU clinical faculty member has written a piece for Forbes that many Muslims find offensive. I understand how they feel -- I found it offensive, too. I am teaching Muslim students now, and I have taught them in the past; the portrayal of Muslims in the Forbes piece bears no resemblance to my experience; I disagree with the Forbes piece and think it is wrong.

"I say all this because as president I have not foresworn the rights I have as a member of the NYU faculty to challenge an idea that I believe is erroneous. But I do not say this lightly, because, first, I believe that university leaders should be circumspect about criticizing faculty work lest they chill faculty's pursuit of new knowledge, and second, our higher duty as university leaders is to be defenders of our faculty's academic freedom rather than proponents of our own ideas. For this reason, I must resist the calls for sanction against this faculty member; such an action would be antithetical to NYU's academic principles, and it will not happen.

"What is appropriate, however, is for other views to be expressed and heard. It is the nature of a university to be home to opposing ideas and opposing views, even absurd and offensive ones. It is our highest tradition to meet ideas, especially absurd and offensive ones, with ideas in a process of civil discourse and through debate over the ideas at play. We will do that here." -- John Sexton

I do not dispute the points made by John Sexton herein, but I do think there are two levels on which the words of Varadarajan hurt the NYU community and I am not sure Sexton is adequately addressing either. First, as I expressed in my original letter and partly addressed by Sexton, it alienates our Muslim colleagues, many of whom are valuable members of our community as I well know from my own experience as a scientist at NYU. I can't help but feel that had Varadarajan made reference to "Going Black" to refer to laziness or "Going Jewish" to refer to greed, his ass would have been fired, free speech issues or no. But the fact that he expressed a slur against Muslims is somehow more tolerated, or so it seems to me, and this sends a horrible message to our Muslim colleagues. And in this context I think I should remind people that Muslims in America, even after 9/11, have been just as loyal and enthusiastic Americans as any group. In fact, I wonder more about the loyalty of the right wing so-called "teabaggers" today than I do most Muslims I have known.

But the comparison with terms like "going black" or "going Jewish" brings up the other way Varadarajan's hurts NYU. This man is an NYU professor and yet in his use of stereotypes as the basis of his arguments he is displaying an amazing amount of intellectual laziness and lack of rigor that makes NYU look bad. Honestly, anyone who relies on these kinds of stereotypes, whether then are directed at Muslims, Jews, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Irish, Italians or whoever, are basically showing a poor quality of intellectual reasoning. And Varadarajan is being intellectually lazy. If that is the level of intellectual rigor among NYU professors, it reflects poorly on NYU.

Let me be clear. Within the sciences at least (where I have personal experience) I consider the quality of professors at NYU to be excellent, so I don't believe Varadarajan's intellectual laziness is really representative of the quality of NYU, but it is nevertheless a very public display of intellectual laziness that is being associated with NYU's name. That hurts the NYU reputation.

My goal is not to disagree with Sexton's statement. My goal is to express my personal disgust at Varadarajan's intellectual laziness and bigotry, and to bring up some of the issues that may get ignored by a public statement made by someone in a position like Sexton's. And personally, if I can help reassure my Muslim colleagues that Varadarajan's views are NOT necessarily the norm around here, then that, too, is a worthy goal.