Background to the Pace University Koran Nonsense

We read:

"As you may recall, I twice discussed the questionably anti-Semitic behavior of Pace administrators in mistreating the campus student Jewish organization, while kowtowing to demands of the student Muslim groups.

In the columns, I make it clear that the campus administration took radically different approaches to anti-Semitic behavior and anti-Muslim behavior. When a Menorah was desecrated on campus and a swastika was drawn on a Holocaust memorial event poster, the University's president David A. Caputo labeled the events as "bias incidents." When a paperback Koran was tossed in a toilet - resulting in minimal water damage - Caputo labeled the incident as a "hate crime" that outraged him.

To realize the great lengths to which the University mistreated both these incidents, I highly recommend you read my column from January of this year. The treatment of both incidents gives the following news greater context.

Now, police have discovered who was responsible for the Koran-toilet incident: Stanislav Shmulevich, a Russian Jewish immigrant who was a student at Pace while anti-Semitic vandalism was occurring and going unpunished. He is being charged with felony hate crimes that could land him in jail for up to four years - just for putting a book in a toilet....

Now, back to the paperback Koran and its unfortunate swim in a toilet bowl. Is this really a hate crime? No one was physically hurt. The damage to the Koran was minimal. The Koran in question was a paperback copy - not a priceless religious document. There was no personal target of the demonstration - the target was a paperback book. This was a constitutionally protected act of free speech, regardless of what New York's hate crime bill states, the same way dropping a crucifix in a jar of urine was protected speech.

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