Islamic Group Wants Professor Disciplined

Black Issues in Higher Education, Jan 21, 1999

WASHINGTON -- An Islamic group is pressing for disciplinary action against a Southern Connecticut State University professor accused of distributing an anti-Islamic pamphlet.

The university planned a public forum to be held in early 1999 on Islam, and possibly other religions, following the controversy over whether professor Shawky Karas gave a student material that defames Islam.

The forum will probably be held no later than March, he says.

But the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations says that is not enough. The council, which acts as a watchdog for incidents of anti-Muslim discrimination around the country, still wants the school to punish Karas, by firing him or at least placing a letter of reprimand in his file.

The controversy erupted after a student, Maryam Fritsch-Mason, complained to the council that Karas, a professor in the Department of Counseling and School Psychology, had given her a copy of the pamphlet during an office meeting to discuss testing and evaluation. The pamphlet warns that a growing Muslim population in the United States could become a strong voting bloc, forcing legal changes that would curtail freedoms.