Why Students Protested Event Analyzing Islamism – New Ideal

When I headed to the University of Rochester to take part in a panel discussion, I had no inkling of the campaign that some students had already launched to shut the event down. The reasons behind their opposition were revealing. In this one incident, concerning one event, at one campus, there’s a telling data point about today’s intellectual climate.

I went to Rochester to speak on a panel about the ideas behind ISIS, Al Qaeda and the wider Islamist movement in the Middle East. The panel also included Graeme Wood of The Atlantic magazine; Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, a secular activist and founder of Ideas Beyond Borders; and Adnan Ahmed, a writer and imam in the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. The event was co-sponsored by the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Foundation, the Ayn Rand Institute, and the campus College Republicans.