Many people are against Carolina having their new students read the Quran; yet if this is really for scholarly purposes then why use an abridged edition, especially when so many of the passages being discussed in the media are missing?
Students will read the book and still not know the full information -- how could that be the basis for a scholarly work?
Is that the way Carolina approaches scholarship?
Where is the thinking by their board, or could it be just as corrupt as many of the corporate boards? Maybe they need people with some understanding of ethics on the board.
Although they may just be out for publicity, since the only bad PR is no PR! And they hopefully knew that this requirement would certainly produce this uproar, or did they?
What if the book that was chosen was the New Testament?
Would the administration defend that decision? Where would academic freedom be then? Would students defend that decision?
Would the ACLU have defended that decision too?
I think not, but then again I am not one of the scholars turned out by the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill.
