A Michigan State mechanical engineering professor is in hot water for "speaking truth to power." I.S. Wichman had the gall to criticize the university's Muslim Students Association as they protested the blasphemous Danish Muhammed cartoons.

Dear Moslem Association: As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intened [sic] to protest your protest.

I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey!), burnings of Christian chirches, [sic] the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavain girls and women (called "whores" in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris France.

This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many, many of my colleagues. I counsul you dissatisfied, agressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile "protests."

If you do not like the values of the West -- see the 1st Ammendment [sic]-- you are free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option. Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans.

Cordially, I. S. Wichman, Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Predictably, there are calls for "diversity training," "letters of reprimand" and "education."

To Farhan Abdul Azeez, an MSU senior studying human biology and the president of the student association, the e-mail was startling.

"Naturally, I was very upset. I was disgusted. All of those emotions went through my body," said Azeez, 20, of Canton.

...

"The best way to limit or to kind of defuse hate is through education, no doubt," said Maryam Khalil, 18, a sophomore from East Lansing studying journalism. Khalil is vice president of the association.

Those visceral feelings occur when they're called on the violence being committed in the name of their religion, but not when their religion is actually is actually doing beheading-type actions.

The sad thing about this whole episode is that the professor has become suitably chastened.

He said he considers the comments "very inappropriate. And I personally wish he would apologize to the students."

Why? Probably because the administration has come down on him.

Terry Denbow, spokesman for MSU, said Wichman's views in no way represent the university's views. But, he said, they do not violate the university's antidiscrimination policy.

"He was cautioned that any additional commentary ... could constitute the creation of a hostile environment, and that could ... form the basis of a complaint" under the policy, Denbow said.

If he opens his yap again, he'll get slapped with the dreaded "hostile environment" tag. Maybe Denbow should sit in on any women's studies course on campus if he wants to see what constitutes a hostile environment.

The head of the Muslim Students Association also sees a bigger problem.

"There's a bigger problem here of racism and discrimination at Michigan State University. Faculty training and sensitivity training are very important to help prevent future incidents like this from occurring," he said.

I didn't know "Muslim" was a race. I stand corrected. Frankly, if Wichman was spouting this stuff in his mechanical engineering classes, I would have a problem with it too. But the idea that Islam is somehow above criticism is nothing less than a politically correct inspired sharia law.