Michigan State asked to punish professor for anti-Muslim e-mail By DAVID EGGERT Associated Press Writer LANSING, Mich. An Islamic rights group on Monday urged Michigan State University to discipline an engineering professor for disparaging Muslims in an e-mail he sent to the school's Muslim Students' Association.
Indrek Wichman, a mechanical engineering professor, sent an e-mail to the student group Feb. 28 _ apparently in response to its protests of controversial Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. The students had labeled the cartoons as hate speech, not free speech. Wichman, 55, wrote that he was protesting their protest and said he was not offended by cartoons but rather Muslims who commit suicide bombings, behead civilians, attack public buildings, burn Christian churches, kill Catholic priests in Turkey, rape Scandinavian girls and riot in France. "I counsul you dissatisfied, agressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile 'protests,'" Wichman wrote in the e-mail. "If you do not like the values of the West _ see the 1st Ammendment _ you are free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option. Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans." Wichman declined to comment when contacted Monday by The Associated Press. Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Michigan State officials should publicly denounce Wichman's statements and conduct an investigation. The results of the probe should be made public, and Wichman should at least have a letter of reprimand placed in his file, Walid said. The group also wants Wichman and other faculty to receive sensitivity training before the fall semester. "We're not asking for him to be dismissed from his job," Walid said. "But the statements in no way reflect the mission and high academic standards of Michigan State University." University spokesman Terry Denbow said the school would not publicly decry Wichman's statements because they were private and did not represent the school in any way. But he added that Wichman has been advised to be careful in the future about hinting that he was speaking on the behalf of others. In the e-mail, Wichman said Muslims' violent actions in other parts of the world offended him and "many, many, many of my colleagues." "Many of the words and descriptions in his e-mail are certainly antithetical to an institutional commitment to an inclusive approach to learning," Denbow said. "I personally consider them to be highly inappropriate." Walid said Wichman's message intimidated Muslim students at Michigan State. "It's not harmless," he said of the e-mail. "It has Muslim students on campus apprehensive." Denbow said he hopes Wichman will apologize for the e-mail but added that officials have determined the message did not threaten students' learning environment. Deference is given to free speech unless it is a form of harassment, Denbow said. The university will continue to meet with Muslim groups and students to discuss the matter, Denbow said. In February, an online newspaper run by an instructor and students at Michigan State _ but not affiliated with the school _ published the Danish cartoons, drawing criticism from Muslim groups. The drawings provoked mass demonstrations and riots across the Muslim world in January and February. ___ On the Net: Michigan State University: http://www.msu.edu Council on American-Islamic Relations: http://www.cair-net.org 060424 221053 Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. FAIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with "Fair Use" criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976. 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