A cheap shot like the use of “tea baggers” demonstrates the low level of his discourse. This is education? For good measure he referred to the media as “f-ing idiots,” eloquent and classy guy that he is. Is this scholarship? Do appellations of bigotry amount to scholarship? Is foul language related to scholarship or informative? He meandered from one accusation to another with little connective tissue. He oozed with a profound low regard for wide swaths of America. His lecture was generously littered with assertions and condemnations for the nation and people who have allowed him to prosper while getting paid to castigate in a very unscholarly fashion. The vacuous nature of his presentation was so vast that it is hard to know where to begin. I’d love to get the text to comprehensively tear it apart at length. He has a right to peddle nonsense under the guise of scholarship in America. But on the tax-payer dollar we should demand scholarship, balance and civility. None of his colleagues challenged him. The Socratic method was not on the minds of the chorus of professorial sycophants. They had no problem going after me but hands off the illustrious professor who peddling animus as research. One student had the courage to challenge him by putting some blame on the tens of thousands of Islamist terrorist incidents for sullying the image of Islam. Sheehi had no response other than to say he disagrees. After all, the murderers have nothing to do with it. When I challenged him during Q. and A. — based on FBI statistics with reference to hate crimes — he bobbed and weaved like Ali in full rope a dope mode against Frazier. When I pressed the professor for a responsive reply his fellow professors jumped to their feet to silence me.  Is there any chance the IICAS has the courage to host a presentation disputing Sheehi’s assertions about Islamophobia? Seems to me in the spirit of fair play and diversity of opinion that the students deserve nothing less. Is the university a place where diversity of opinion carries the same status as diversity of color, heritage, race and gender? After all it is diversity of opinion that stimulates thought and analysis — not skin color, gender or heritage. I urge the public and student organizations to demand equal time and genuine scholarship. Is the university as open-minded as it would like to think it is? We will see.

—Michael Hayutin

 Resident, San Diego