Feisal Isatrabadi, excerpt from letter copied to Chancellor Wise

Excerpt from a letter declining an invitation, copied to Chancellor Wise

I am very grateful for your gracious invitation to speak at your campus. And while I hope that the day will come when I can accept an invitation to speak there, so long as the administration at U of I fails to protect academic freedom and freedom of speech, I am afraid that I find it quite impossible to do so.

Your Chancellor has failed in the first duty of a university administrator, to protect her faculty from interference from outside forces that seek to stifle debate, even if that debate is deemed obnoxious. I can only refer to the salutary example set by Indiana University’s own Herman Wells, who protected such unpopular researchers as Alfred Kinsey in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, despite outrage they caused in the Indiana legislature and in other constituencies.

Once again, I thank you for the invitation.