CENSORSHIP AT BROWN UNIV.

Free speech controversy builds as pro-Israel speech canceled at Brown (JTA)
NEW YORK, Nov. 20 (JTA) — A controversy over free-speech restrictions on college campuses continues to grow after Jewish student leaders at Brown University canceled an appearance by a pro-Israel speaker because a Muslim chaplain called her controversial.

Jewish students had asked the student board of Brown’s chapter of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life to co-sponsor a Nov. 30 speech by Nonie Darwish, an Arab who had become pro-Israel and author of “Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror.”

Earlier this month, however, after tentatively agreeing to sponsor the event, the board nixed the event after Brown’s Muslim chaplain, Rumee Ahmed, raised objections.

Born in Cairo and raised in Gaza, Darwish is the daughter of an Egyptian intelligence officer killed by Israeli soldiers. She says she was indoctrinated from childhood to hate Israel but changed her views after befriending Jews who yearned for peace and after her brother’s life was saved by Jewish doctors at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital. She since has converted to Christianity and attends an evangelical church.

The California-based Darwish now speaks around the United States on the difficulties women face under Islam and on the Muslim jihad against Israel.

According to Serena Eisenberg, director of Brown’s Hillel, Jewish students wanted to bring Darwish to speak about rights in the Middle East, and by default in Israel. They enlisted Hillel and Brown’s Sarah Doyle Women’s Center as sponsors.

But Ahmed reportedly said Darwish’s views were offensive to Muslims, who Ahmed claims live in fear at the university. Then “the Muslim Students Association and the Muslim chaplain and the Chaplain’s Office expressed concern about bringing Nonie to campus, so the women’s group withdrew their sponsorship,” Eisenberg told JTA on Monday.

Neither Ahmed nor Gail Cohee, director of the Women’s Center, would return phone calls from JTA.

Once the Women’s Center withdrew its sponsorship, the Hillel students considered whether they wanted to be the lone sponsors of an event that could prove controversial, Eisenberg said.

According to Yael Richardson, the Hillel chapter’s student president, the board was lobbied by Ahmed and via e-mail by Brown’s head chaplain, the Rev. Janet Cooper Nelson.

Cooper Nelson “told us to think about the implications of what this would do with our religious communities on campus,” Richardson said. “She encouraged us to think carefully about whether we wanted to fund the event.”

After researching Darwish’s writings and past statements, the five members of the board decided against bringing her to campus so as not to jeopardize their “lovely” relationship with Muslim counterparts, Richardson said. Eisenberg said there also were scheduling issues.

Richardson said she’s proud of the decision, which earned Hillel a scathing rebuke from the New York Post and led to the resignation of one student Hillel official.