So the conservative Young America's Foundation is putting on Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week at college campuses, including GW. According to the Washington Post (Oct. 9), "[Sergio] Gor [the group's GW student leader] said writer David Horowitz will speak, 'The Path to 9/11,' a TV mini-series, will be shown, and there will be a panel discussion featuring people who escaped the regime in Iran. 'One gal got flogged 300 times for wearing nail polish,' he said."

Then Monday morning, the following poster came up:

The university took the posters down, and said the university "will not tolerate[] the dissemination of fliers or other documents that vilify any religious, ethnic, or racial group." Student association Executive Vice President Brand Kroeger called for "expulsion" of those who put up the posters.

Now it turns out that the poster was put up by student critics of the Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week event. The students claim that the posters were supposed to be pretty clear satire — quite plausible, given the "lasers in eye" and "peg-leg for smuggling and heroin," and the "Brought to you by Students for Conservativo-Fascism Awareness." They also keep talking about how the Islamo-Fascism Awareness event is supposedly "racis[t]," without much of an explanation. Islamofascism is a religious and political ideology, and deserves condemnation; note also that the people who are killed and oppressed by Islamofascists are, of course, overwhelmingly of the same ethnic groups as the Islamofascists themselves.

In any case, thought I'd pass along this little academic farce. Thanks to Dave Sidhu for the pointer to the GW Hatchet stories.

It's online; I quote the text:

Seven students at your institution falsely attributed the "Hate Muslims? So Do We!!" fliers to The George Washington University chapter of Young America's Foundation.When the fliers initially surfaced you said, "There is no place for expressions of hatred on our campus. We do not condone, and we will not tolerate the dissemination of fliers or other documents that vilify any religious, ethnic or racial group."

We agree. Vicious personal attacks levied on students are intolerable, and should not go unpunished. The question remains: what will you do about such blatant character assassination now that the truth is out? How will you demonstrate that you don't "condone" or "tolerate" the dissemination of hate?

To be clear, liberal radicals on your campus accused conservative students of engaging in racist activities, and to buttress those baseless claims, these same radicals manufactured actual racist activities to pin on the young conservatives.

Student Association Executive Vice President Brand Kroeger told the GW Hatchet that he "would support expulsion. These acts are completely heinous." Again, we agree with this statement if Kroeger believes it is the job of The George Washington University to protect the reputation of students who are wrongfully maligned. In an open letter to you, the culprits admit to distorting the views of the conservatives on campus. They wrote, "We want to reach out to our Muslim brothers and sisters in the Holy Month of Ramadan in hopes that they will embrace our misrepresented, but honorable stand against racism" (emphasis added).

There is, of course, a clear difference between ordinary Muslims who positively contribute to society and radical Jihadists who boast about murdering people indiscriminately. It's a typical left-wing tactic, however, to just call names, such as "racist," rather than engage in a serious debate, in this case, over radical Islam. Only the intellectually deficient revert to such slanderous attacks.

The seven who put up the phony fliers are frauds.

You should issue an apology to the conservatives unfairly targeted. It was obvious that the fliers were spreading lies, but your administration, led by Bridgette Behling -- the assistant director of the Student Activities Center -- sent emails to the young conservatives pressuring them to sign statements disavowing any hate speech that may originate at any future Young America's Foundation event.

That's astonishing. Maybe she forgot that the presumption of innocence is an American hallmark? Or maybe your administration should pressure leftist groups to sign statements disavowing any future dirty tricks on conservatives?

The political profiling of conservatives MUST stop. You need to organize a forum immediately that embraces intellectual diversity and denounces the Left's attempts to create hostile learning environments for conservatives. The campus leftists wrote that Young America's Foundation "should not [be] allow[ed]" to host conservative speakers. These seven students are trying to squelch robust dialogue and free speech. We believe this to be the goal of their scheme. As president of The George Washington University, we hope that you will create an atmosphere where all students, including conservatives, feel welcomed.

Don't waste the opportunity.

A little too much umbrage, it seems to me, given that the poster was pretty clearly a satire, rather than an attempt to deceive. On the other hand, some critics of the Foundation indeed seem to have been deceived, and did indeed think that conservative students were accusing Muslims of having "lasers in eyes" and "peg-leg[s] for smuggling children and heroin," on a poster labeled "Brought to you by Students for Conservative-Fascism Awareness." Oy.

Thanks to the Washington Times for putting the letter online.