Despite the fact that nearly 100 colleges nationwide, including two in the District, will hold events for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week next week, AU students will not participate in the event on campus.
Organizers call the event the "biggest conservative campus protest ever."
AU College Republicans have focused on its own sponsored events, pulling in some of the most recognized names in the conservative movement, said Will Haun, president of College Republicans.
"We have Ramesh Ponnuru, Tom DeLay and Ron Paul all coming in the next two weeks," Haun said. "We've been pretty busy with our own planning."
Next week will mark the start of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, with 100 participating campuses nationwide, including George Washington and Georgetown universities. The Terrorism Awareness Project, a program conducted by the conservative David Horowitz Freedom Center, is organizing the week's events. The purpose of the protest is "to confront the two big lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that global warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat," according to the Terrorism Awareness Project's Web site.
The week's events include prominent right-wing speakers, a memorial service for victims of Islamic terror, film screenings and a petition that, according to the publication "A Student's Guide to Hosting Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," "forces students and faculty to declare their allegiances: either to fighting our terrorist adversaries or failing to take action to stop our enemies."
Instead of confronting what one party thinks are lies, students should participate in an effort to better understand Islam and not further perpetrate cultural stigmas, said Megan Fillebrown, a sophomore in the School of Communication.
"There really should be a campaign to get people to understand that Islam is not a violent religion," she said. "Most Islamic people do not condone what the terrorists are doing."
But educating students about the United States' valued ideologies is the most important part of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, according to Jordan Neidig, correspondence director of GW's Young America's Foundation.
"We think it's important to spread freedom and democracy by spreading awareness about Islamo-fascism," he said.
Highly controversial and divisive petitions, such as the one that will be circulated next week by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, provide a one-sided and heavily biased glimpse of the issues they present, said Andrew Wolf, a junior in the School of International Service.
"The 'us versus them' mentality doesn't leave any room for debate," Wolf said. "But then again, it's good that they're coming off as more extreme because then people will actually talk about the issues."
Seemingly outrageous and fanatical claims usually lead to vigorous discussion, according to School of Public Affairs professor Emilio Viano.
"I think we should welcome these events ... universities need to be open to all sorts of opinion because open discussion leads to political engagement," Viano said.
The Muslim Student Association, in conjunction with the Community Action and Social Justice coalition, is planning an event in response to the Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. A lot of students want to widen the scope of discussion of race and religion in Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week's events, according to Laura Taylor, co-facilitator in CASJ.
"I think it's important to have a response as a campus to create a space for people who are directly affected and upset by this event," Taylor said.
