CAIR Tries to Ban Professor's Speech

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) continues its epic struggle to understand the First Amendment.

In the latest incident, the Muslim civil liberties group has asked government officials in Brevard County, Florida to deny the use of a county-owned meeting room to a group CAIR has tagged as “an anti-Muslim hate group,” reports the Orlando Sentinel.

The group CAIR opposes is the local chapter of ACT! for America, an organization that stands particularly to thwart the threat posed by radical Islam.ACT! for America wants to use a committee room in the tiny coastal town of Viera to host a speech by Jonathan Matusitz, a tenured communications professor at the University of Central Florida down the road in Orlando. Matusitz is slated to speak on Tuesday at a session called “The Islamic Threat to America.”

CAIR thinks the government should prohibit the UCF professor’s speech. “It creates the perception of endorsement and approval by the Brevard County government of this group’s hateful views,” Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s communications director, told the Sentinel. Hassan Shibly, a lawyer and executive director of CAIR of Tampa, said he is normally in favor of free speech.

Hat tip: RoP