An event featuring retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and former congressman Allen West at Gonzaga University saw backlash earlier this month as students and faculty members protested him for being an ‘Islamophobe.’
The former veteran was hosted by the school’s College Republicans to discuss “The Truth About Radical Islam,” a lecture and Q&A session surrounding the topics of conflicts in the Middle East and United States defense security. At the event, West spoke about the nuances of the war on Islamic terror, explaining Islamic terrorism is not what the U.S. is fighting; rather, Islamic totalitarianism or fascism. He added he does not have a problem with refugee women or children immigrating to the U.S., but he does have a problem with “single military-age men.”
“I think this was a great opportunity to have a great open discussion,” student Junid Naveed told Gonzaga’s student paper.
The event auditorium was described by students as “packed” within five minutes of doors opening. Students who attended the event after that were eventually kept out of the lecture hall, as the room was too filled to hold any more individuals.
One group of event attendees, representatives of the Spokane Islamic Center, arrived approximately 45 minutes after the auditorium doors had opened and thus were not let into the lecture hall, CR member Abigail Osborne noted. By the time the Muslim students had arrived, security told Osborne and other CR members they had to direct attendees to the event’s “overflow room.”
One faculty member who was in line, Osborne noted, responded, “Oh, a woman with a veil shows up and suddenly you can’t let any of us in!”
John Sheveland, a religious studies professor at Gonzaga, responded to West’s event with an editorial letter to the student paper titled, ‘Open Letter to Muslim Students of Gonzaga University.’ Sheveland apologized to Muslim students at Gonzaga and said his event was a direct act of offense against them. He referenced the Muslim students who were allegedly late to the event Thursday, saying their exclusion from the event was an “inadvertent but symbolic slight.”
“I apologize to all of our Muslim students — to each of you — for the fact that you remain misunderstood, unseen, stigmatized, and irrationally feared by some in our society and even our campus. I am sorry,” he wrote.
Sheveland allegedly discussed the event in the same regard during one of his classes, referring to West as an “unqualified and celebrated Islamophobe.”
Osborne told The Daily Wire she would be reporting Sheveland for creating a “hostile” classroom environment, and wrote a response for her student paper.
“I reject Dr. Sheveland’s disingenuous slandering of Lt. Col. West’s attitudes toward Muslims,” Osborne wrote. “Long before Dr. Sheveland was comfortably studying religion and theology at Yale, Lt. Col. West was risking his life during combat operations protecting the lives of Muslims in Kuwait against Saddam Hussein’s invading army. He has put his life on the line during combat operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.”
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