Angry in the Great White North

From North Carolina:

A UNC-Chapel Hill student was fired from The Daily Tar Heel, the school's student newspaper, Wednesday after she wrote a column on airport security that maintained Arabs should be "stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport."

Jillian Bandes, a junior from Florida, was the author of the column that ran in Tuesday's edition of the school paper. She says she was just stating her opinion on airport security in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and was never given an opportunity from The Daily Tar Heel editors to defend herself.

"I don't care if they're being inconvenienced," Bandes wrote. "I don't care if it seems as though their rights are being violated. I care about my life. I care about the lives of my family and friends. And I care about the lives of the Arabs and Arab-Americans I'm privileged to know and study with. They're some of the brightest, kindest people I've ever met."

Well, Muslims complained, and there is only one punishment fitting for someone who has offended Catholics Jews conservatives Muslims: immediate termination:

After running a letter to the editor Wednesday from the Muslim Students Association denouncing the column and questioning the validity of some of the comments in the article, Chris Coletta, opinion editor for The Daily Tar Heel, met with Bandes Wednesday afternoon to inform her of her termination. Bandes said she was never given an opportunity to write a column apologizing to offended students, a practice that has precedent with the paper. She said that was going to be the topic of her next column.

The title of her piece?

I guess we could also write is as:

I guess these comments from her column would have to be removed as well:

And Arab students at UNC don't seem to think that's such a bad idea.

"(Racial profiling) really doesn't bother me," said Sherief Khaki, a first-generation Egyptian-American and representative of the UNC-CH Arabic Club.

"So a couple of hours are wasted. Big deal."

Said Muhammad Salameh, a junior biology major: "I can accept it, even if I don't like it. I don't want to die."

Professor Nasser Isleem, a man for whom I have complete and utter respect after merely two weeks of sitting in his Arabic 101 class, said, "Let them search."

"It depends on how I'm stopped, but if it is done in a professional manner … "

Then he nodded.

"There were Muslims in those buildings, too."

No reason to have a debate here. Clearly everyone agrees the racial profiling is bad, and must be expunged from the groupthink.

By the way, the paper says Bandes was fired because those quotes were somehow out of context. They don't actually provide full quotes or otherwise back that assertion up. They insist this is just about bad journalism.

Right.

If you dare disagree with these guardians of political correctness journalistic integrity, you have a few choices to make your opinions known.

• You can fill in a feedback form at The Daily Tar Heel


• Here is where you can find an email for Chris Coletta, the hatchet man


• The Daily Tar Heel has a blog


• So does the editor