Home of phobia aka freshman orientation download.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/tunkuvaradarajan.jpg” alt=”tunkuvaradarajan” width=”170″ height=”220″ />Last week, Suri wrote about a recent column by Stern professor Tunku Varadajaran in which he used the term “going Muslim”–inspired by “going postal”–to describe the shooting at Fort Hood. And yesterday, Washington Square News runs what, if they’re lucky, will go down in history as the most baffling editorial they’ve ever run on any subject, ever. Their argument is that not only should Varadajaran keep his job, but the NYU administration should pretend that nothing happened, because, well, blockquoting is the only way for me to do this justice.

Having said that, we do support Cooley and Sexton’s decision not to penalize Varadarajan. We believe that every viewpoint from students, faculty and administration is just as valid as any other. We wrote as much two months ago in discussing prospective law professor Thio Li-ann, whose stance on gay rights drew considerable opposition among NYU students: “Intellectual discourse is rooted in conflicting opinions, and for this to happen, people of disagreeing perspectives and paradigms must come together to engage one another … No viewpoint will ever satisfy all sides, but each belief is as valid as any other.”

Way to quote yourself, guys; that argument was so awesome it needs to be heard twice!

Except I can’t get my head around the idea that anyone at WSN really believes that. Each belief is valid? Really? On one side, you’ve got, “Muslims should be banned from the military because it’s reasonable to assume that any given Muslim person is probably a cleverly disguised murderous psychopath,” and on the other side you’ve got, “No, that’s not true, and you’re a dick,” and Washington Square News thinks that both of those views are equally valid?

Time to grow up, guys. “Everyone’s opinion is equally valid” is something we tell to fourth graders to keep them from getting into fistfights over whether or not Batman is cooler than Superman (he is), but I figured by college everyone had abandoned that view. Sure something like your favorite flavor of ice cream is entirely subjective, but the statement “America would be safer if we banned all Muslims from the military” is not. There are good arguments and bad arguments, good views and bad views. Sometimes it’s hard to tell one from the other, but here’s a hint: if your argument involves portraying over 1.5 billion people worldwide as unhinged lunatics because of the actions of a small band of radicals, it’s probably a bad argument. And WSN knows this! You can tell, because earlier in the editorial they wrote, in characteristically tortured language, that Vadajaran’s column “stereotypes an entire culture and paints negative connotations to its beliefs.”

That’s not to say that I think Vadajaran should get fired. Nor did I think Purdue’s librarian or Ward Churchill should have gotten sacked. Sure, in each of these situations, I think the views expressed were reprehensible (or as WSN would say: “paint negative connotations to something something”). But there are issues of academic freedom to consider. If there’s no preexisting policy of conduct, then randomly shitcanning a professor sets an ugly precedent. And if you want to create a preexisting policy that prevents professors from publicly discriminating, I don’t know what kind of rule you could come up with that wouldn’t be too broad and could possibly stifle legitimate debate elsewhere.

Which isn’t to say that the NYU administration should do nothing. NYU prides itself on being a multicultural school, and if they want to paint positive connotations on whatever the fuck it is connotations are painted on, then it’s important for Sexton to repudiate Varadarajan’s column. And despite what WSN says, he actually did do that. Perhaps the editorial board would have noticed that if they got they bothered to read their own newspaper.

In a statement, Sexton said that although he found Varadarajan’s column to be offensive and disagrees with it, he values civil discourse. Sexton said he will not impose a sanction against Varadarajan.

Here’s the exact wording from the statement:

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.

That certainly reads a lot like repudiation to me. But I’m not going to insist that WSN messed and should issue a correction, because, hey, their take on this is equally valid!

UPDATE: The paragraph that suggested Sexton declined to repudiate Vadarajan’s column has been changed, although no correction was issued.