Fifth Column Professor Wins NLG Award

Northeastern University professor M. Shahid Alam wrote a disgusting article comparing the September 11 attackers favorably to the American Minutemen; an excerpt:

On September 11, 2001, nineteen Arab hijackers too demonstrated their willingness to die - and to kill - for their dream. They died so that their people might live, free and in dignity.

Yesterday the radical leftist National Lawyers Guild (Lynne Stewart’s gang) gave professor Alam an award. (Hat tip: SoCalJustice.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Northeastern Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild to Present Free Speech Award to M. Shahid Alam.

Award Recognizes Alam’s Contribution to Vigorous Academic Debate Protected by the First Amendment.

BOSTON, February 14, 2005 - The Northeastern University School of Law Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild will present its Free Speech Award to M. Shahid Alam on Thursday, February 17, 2005, at 12:15 pm in the Law School’s Brown Lounge.

Dr. Alam is a Professor of Economics at Northeastern University. He has written extensively on issues ranging from global economics to international development. He is the author of three books, including “Governments and Markets in Economic Development Strategies” (Praeger: 1989), “Poverty from the Wealth of Nations” (Macmillan: 2000), and, most recently, “Is There an Islamic Problem?” (The Other Press: 2004). In addition, Dr. Alam’s essays have been widely printed in a number of academic journals, including American Economic Review, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Science and Society, Kyklos, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Southern Economic Journal and Journal of Development Economics.

“Dr. Alam has been singled out and had his loyalty to America questioned by conservative commentators like Bill O’Reilly,” explained Bina Ahmad, a third-year law student at Northeastern Law and member of the National Lawyers Guild. “Daniel Pipes of Campus Watch, an organization that claims on its website to respect professor’s right to free speech, goes on national television and calls Dr. Alam a ”radical Muslim“ and a ”bomb thrower“ with ”venom towards America,“ she continued. ”These are outrageous allegations based on a selective and distorted reading of Dr. Alam’s writings. Additionally, Dr. Alam has been the target of physical threats and harassment after excerpts from one of his recent essays were posted on websites of known, extreme right-wing organizations.“

Jonathon Foglia, another Northeastern Law student member of the National Lawyers Guild said that the Free Speech Award was being given to Dr. Alam because his work epitomizes the type of thought and expression that the First Amendment protects. ”Dr. Alam is a man of profound scholarship and enviable bravery. His work is clearly core political speech. Anytime self-professed “patriots” threaten and intimidate individuals on the basis of published words, we must all rally to the defense of the First Amendment and people such as Dr. Alam."